Instructions: How to install and configure 'yt-dlp' on Windows 10 machine

yt-dlp.conf

# =========================================================================
# Instructions: How to install and configure 'yt-dlp' on Windows 10 machine
#
# NOTE: Lines starting with # are treated as comments
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#
#
# =========================================================================
# Part I. "Install Prerequisites"
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#
# 1. Download https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/download/latest/ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl.zip
# 	- Extract it to "C:\Programs\ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl"
# 	- Add "C:\Programs\ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl\bin" to PATH
# 2. Download https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/releases/latest
# 	- Extract it to "C:\Programs\AtomicParsleyWindows"
# 	- Add "C:\Programs\AtomicParsleyWindows" to PATH
# 3. Download https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-2.1.1-windows.zip
# 	- Extract it to "C:\Programs\phantomjs-2.1.1-windows"
# 	- Add "C:\Programs\phantomjs-2.1.1-windows\bin" to PATH
# 4. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables"
# 	- In the "system variables" section (at the bottom), click New and add the following environment-variables:
# 	- HOME=%USERPROFILE%
# 	- WORKON_HOME=%USERPROFILE%\.virtualenvs
#   - Edit the PATH path variable by appending the following value (without the quotes): "%USERPROFILE%\bin"
# 	- Click OK to save the changes
# 	- Close CMD
# 5. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "gpedit.msc"
# 	- The "Local Group Policy Editor" will be opened
# 	- Navigate to "Computer Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "System" > "Filesystem"
# 	- Double click the "Enable NTFS long paths" policy
# 	- Set the radio-button to "Enabled" , then click Apply and OK
# 	- Close the "Local Group Policy Editor"
# 	- Close CMD
# 6. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "regedit.exe"
# 	- Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem"
# 	- Double-click "LongPathsEnabled" > set the value to "1" (without quotes) and click OK
# 	- Close regedit
# 	- Close CMD
# 	- Reboot the PC
#
#
# =========================================================================
# Part II. "Install Python3.9+"
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# 1. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "mkdir C:\python_install"
# 	- "cd /D C:\python_install"
# 	- "curl -O https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.13/python-3.9.13-amd64.exe"
# 	- The installer will be downloaded to "C:\python_install\python-3.9.13-amd64.exe"
# 	- Close CMD
# 2. Create file "C:\python_install\unattend.xml" and paste-in the following contents:
#   <Options>
#     <Option Name="InstallAllUsers" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="AssociateFiles" Value="0" />
#     <Option Name="CompileAll" Value="0" />
#     <Option Name="PrependPath" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Shortcuts" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_doc" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_debug" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_dev" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_exe" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_launcher" Value="0" />
#     <Option Name="Include_lib" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_pip" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_symbols" Value="0" />
#     <Option Name="Include_tcltk" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_test" Value="1" />
#     <Option Name="Include_tools" Value="1" />
#   </Options>
# 	- Remove the # from the beginning of each line, save the changes and close the file
# 3. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "cd /D C:\python_install"
# 	- "python-3.9.13-amd64.exe /passive"
# 	- Wait for the installation to complete
# 	- If prompted, click "Disable Windows PATH limit"
# 	- Close CMD 
# 4. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "python -m pip install --upgrade pip"
# 	- Close CMD 
# 5. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "pip3 install --upgrade setuptools wheel build tzdata virtualenv pipenv"
# 	- Close CMD 
# 6. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "pip3 install --upgrade certifi brotli websockets mutagen pycryptodomex secretstorage pyinstaller py2exe"
# 	- "rmdir /Q /S C:\python_install"
# 	- Close CMD 
#
#
# =========================================================================
# Part III. "Install yt-dlp"
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#
# 1. Open CMD as Administrator and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "pip3 install --upgrade yt-dlp"
# 	- Close CMD 
# 2. Open CMD as normal user and run (without the quotes):
# 	- "echo %USERPROFILE%\yt-dlp.conf"
# 	- Location similar to "C:\User\YOUR_USERNAME_HERE\yt-dlp.conf" will be printed 
# 	- Create the yt-dlp.conf file at the printed location
# 	- Paste-in the current file's contents, then save the changes and close the file
# 3. Confirm the file was saved correctly by running the following command in CMD (without the quotes):
# 	- "type %USERPROFILE%\yt-dlp.conf"
# 	- The file contents should be printed
# 	- Close CMD
# 4. Confirm you are able to download video files:
# 	- Open CMD as normal user and run (without the quotes): "yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7baOCYg-Q"
# 	- The .MP4 file should be created in your Videos directory
# 	- Close CMD
# 5. Confirm you are able to download audio files:
# 	- Open CMD as normal user and run (without the quotes): "yt-dlp -x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwGPb0Hvw"
# 	- The .MP3 file should be created in your Videos directory
# 	- Close CMD
# 6. (Optional) Create file "%USERPROFILE%\bin\dlv.cmd"
# - Paste-in the following contents (remove # from beginning of each line):
#    @echo off
#    yt-dlp -P "~/Videos" -o "%%(title)s.%%(ext)s" %*
#    @echo on
# - Save the changes and close the file
# - Now if you want to download video files, open CMD and run "dlv LINK_TO_VIDEO"
# - The MP4 video file will be saved in your Videos directory
# 7. (Optional) Create file "%USERPROFILE%\bin\dla.cmd"
# - Paste-in the following contents (remove # from beginning of each line):
#    @echo off
#    yt-dlp --extract-audio -P "~/Music" -o "%%(title)s.%%(ext)s" %*
#    @echo on
# - Save the changes and close the file
# - Now if you want to download audio files, open CMD and run "dla LINK_TO_VIDEO"
# - The MP3 audio file will be saved in your Music directory
#
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# For more info and detailed instructions: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------


# =============== yt-dlp configuration starts below this line ==================


#============================== Verbosity ======================================

# Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
--progress

# Do not download the video and do not write anything to disk
# --simulate

# Print various debugging information
# --verbose

#=============================== Download ======================================

# Save all videos under you user's Videos directory
--output "~/Videos/%(title)s.%(ext)s"

# Set the output format.
# Details: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#format-selection
# Examples: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#format-selection-examples
--format bestvideo+bestaudio/best

# Download only the video, if the URL refers to a video and a playlist
--no-playlist

# Download the playlist, if the URL refers to a video and a playlist
# When using this, you also have to change the --output value accordingly
# For example: --output "~/Videos/%(playlist)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
# --yes-playlist

# Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative video that should be downloaded concurrently (default is 1)
--concurrent-fragments 1

# Number of retries (default is 10), or "infinite"
--retries 20

# Number of times to retry on file access error (default is 3), or "infinite"
--file-access-retries 20

# Number of retries for a fragment (default is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
--fragment-retries 20

# Number of retries for known extractor errors (default is 3), or "infinite"
--extractor-retries 20

# Size of download buffer, e.g. 1024 or 16K (default is 1024)
--buffer-size 32k

#============================= Post-Processing =================================

# Uncomment this or pass '-x' from the command line to exctract the audio and delete the video file afterwards
# Convert video files to audio-only files (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
# --extract-audio

#  Format to convert the audio to when -x is used. (currently supported: best (default), aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis, wav).
# You can specify multiple rules using similar syntax as --remux-video
--audio-format mp3

# Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when converting the audio with -x.
# Insert a value between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
--audio-quality 0

# Uncomment to keep the intermediate video file on disk after post-processing when --extract-audio was passed
# --keep-video

# Containers that may be used when merging formats, separated by "/", e.g. "mp4/mkv".
# Ignored if no merge is required. (currently supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)
--merge-output-format mp4

# Remux the video into another container if necessary 
# Currently supported: avi, flv, gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac, flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis, wav).
# If target container does not support the video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You can specify multiple rules;
# e.g. "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
# --remux-video mp4

# Re-encode the video into another format if necessary.
# The syntax and supported formats are the same as --remux-video
--recode-video mp4

# Add chapter markers to the video file (Alias: --add-chapters)
# --embed-chapters 

# Embed metadata to the video file.
# Also embeds chapters/infojson if present unless --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are used (Alias: --add-metadata)
# --embed-metadata

#================================ Netwrok ======================================

# Make all connections via IPv4
--force-ipv4

# Make all connections via IPv6
# --force-ipv6

# Enable file:// URLs. This is disabled by default for security reasons.
# --enable-file-urls

# Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
# To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme, e.g. socks5://user:[email protected]:1080/.
# Pass in an empty string (--proxy "") for direct connection
# --proxy URL

# Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--socket-timeout 30 

# Client-side IP address to bind to
# --source-address IP

# Netscape formatted file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
# --cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt.

#### In order to extract cookies from browser use any conforming browser extension for exporting cookies.
#### For example: 
####    'Get cookies.txt' (for Chrome)  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid/
####    'cookies.txt' (for Firefox) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookies-txt/
#### NOTE: the cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and 
####       the first line of the cookies file must be either # HTTP Cookie File or # Netscape HTTP Cookie File.
#### Make sure you have correct newline format in the cookies file and convert newlines if necessary to correspond with your OS, namely
####     CRLF (\r\n) for Windows and  LF (\n) for Unix and Unix-like systems (Linux, macOS, etc.). 
#### HTTP Error 400: Bad Request when using --cookies is a good sign of invalid newline format.
#### How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl? use the--cookies option, for example

# The name of the browser to load cookies from.
# Currently supported browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox, opera, safari, vivaldi.
# Optionally, the KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux, the name/path of the PROFILE to load cookies from, and the CONTAINER name (if Firefox) ("none" for no container) can be given with their respective seperators.
# By default, all containers of the most recently accessed profile are used. Currently supported keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring, kwallet, kwallet5, kwallet6
# --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]

#============================== Filesystem =====================================

# File containing URLs to download ("-" for stdin), one URL per line.
# Lines starting with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as comments and ignored
# --batch-file FILE 

# Do not use the Last-modified header to set the file modification time
--no-mtime

# Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
--restrict-filenames

# Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
--windows-filenames

# Limit the filename length (excluding extension) to the specified number of characters
--trim-filenames 256

# Overwrite all video and metadata files. This option includes --no-continue
# --force-overwrites

# Write video description to a .description file
# --write-description

# Write video metadata to a .info.json file (this may contain personal information)
# --write-info-json

# Write playlist metadata in addition to the video metadata when using --write-info-json, --write-description etc. (default)
# --write-playlist-metafiles

# Retrieve video comments to be placed in the infojson.
# The comments are fetched even without this option if the extraction is known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
# --write-comments

# Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can store some downloaded information (such as client ids and signatures) permanently.
# By default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/yt-dlp
# --cache-dir DIR

# Disable filesystem caching
# --no-cache-dir

# Delete all filesystem cache files
# --rm-cache-dir

#============================= Thumbnails ======================================

# Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
--embed-thumbnail

# Write thumbnail image to disk
# --write-thumbnail

# Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
# --write-all-thumbnails

# Convert the thumbnails to another format (currently supported: jpg, png, webp).
# You can specify multiple rules using similar syntax as --remux-video
# --convert-thumbnails png

# List available thumbnails of each video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
# --list-thumbnails

#================================ Subs =========================================

# Write subtitle file
# --write-subs

# Write automatically generated subtitle file (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
# --write-auto-subs

# Languages of the subtitles to download (can be regex) or "all" separated by commas, e.g. --sub-langs "en.*,ja".
# You can prefix the language code with a "-" to exclude it from the requested languages, e.g. --sub-langs all,-live_chat.
# Use --list-subs for a list of available language tags
# --sub-langs "bg.*,en"               

# Subtitle format; accepts formats preference, e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
# --sub-format "srt/best"             

# Convert the subtitles to another format (currently supported: ass, lrc, srt, vtt) (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
# --convert-subs srt

# Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4, webm and mkv videos)
# --embed-subs

#============================ Authentication ===================================

# Login with this account ID
# --username USERNAME

# Account password. If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
# --password PASSWORD

# Two-factor authentication code
# --twofactor TWOFACTOR

# Use .netrc authentication data
# --netrc

# Location of .netrc authentication data; either the path or its containing directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
# --netrc-location PATH

# Command to execute to get the credentials for an extractor.
# --netrc-cmd NETRC_CMD

#  Video password (vimeo, youku)
# --video-password PASSWORD

# Path to client certificate file in PEM format. May include the private key
# --client-certificate CERTFILE

# Path to private key file for client certificate
# --client-certificate-key KEYFILE

# Password for client certificate private key, if encrypted. If not provided, and the key is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
# --client-certificate-password PASSWORD

# Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for a list of available MSOs
# --ap-mso MSO

# Multiple-system operator account login
# --ap-username USERNAME

# Multiple-system operator account password. If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
# --ap-password PASSWORD

# List all supported multiple-system operators
# --ap-list-mso


# More info available at: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#authentication-options

#============================== Workarounds ====================================

# Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers that do not support RFC 5746 secure renegotiation
# --legacy-server-connect

#### Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
# --no-check-certificate

#### Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve information about the video. (Currently supported only for YouTube)
# --prefer-insecure

# Specify a custom HTTP header and its value, separated by a colon ":". You can use this option multiple times
# --add-headers FIELD:VALUE

# Work around terminals that lack bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv or fribidi executable in PATH
# --bidi-workaround

# Number of seconds to sleep between requests during data extraction
# --sleep-requests SECONDS

# Number of seconds to sleep before each download. This is the minimum time to sleep when used along with --max-sleep-interval (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
# --sleep-interval SECONDS

# Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only be used along with --min-sleep-interval
# --max-sleep-interval SECONDS

# Number of seconds to sleep before each subtitle download
# --sleep-subtitles SECONDS