Privacy First
Zero telemetry, logs, or history. Everything stays on device. The only connection is to YouTube.
A privacy-first CLI tool powered by yt-dlp. No ads, no trackers, no data leaves your device.
Why YTDL
Fast, private, and cross-platform. Engineered to stay out of your way.
Zero telemetry, logs, or history. Everything stays on device. The only connection is to YouTube.
16 concurrent fragment downloads. Saturates your connection using yt-dlp's proven engine.
Accurately detects and displays available video resolutions before you download.
Previews every entry before downloading. Set quality once for the whole playlist.
High-quality MP3 via ffmpeg. AAC source preferred, re-encoded for universal playback.
Downloads yt-dlp on first run. Installs ffmpeg on Linux and Termux with no manual steps.
Get Started
Node.js 18+ required. No config files, no setup wizards.
Use npm, pnpm, or yarn. The package ships with everything it needs.
yt-dlp downloads to ~/.ytdl/. ffmpeg auto-installs on
Linux and Termux.
Video, playlist, short, or channel. Pick quality, press enter. Files go
to ~/Downloads/YTDL/.
npm install -g @iambhvsh/ytdl
pnpm add -g @iambhvsh/ytdl
ytdl
Compatibility
Privacy
Privacy isn't a feature here — it's the constraint every other decision is built around.
Zero analytics, telemetry, or usage data. Not even anonymous crash reports.
Download history never written to disk. Every session starts completely clean.
All merging happens on your machine via ffmpeg. Zero cloud involvement.
No .info.json, thumbnail, or comment files written alongside downloads.
Connects to YouTube for video data and GitHub once on first run for yt-dlp.
Every line is on GitHub. Read it, audit it, fork it. No trust required.
Free forever. No account. Just run it.