Python YouTube Downloader Script

This website contains lots of Python development resources. There is a lot of Python source code available that you can directly implement in your website applications. In this article, you will learn about a YouTube Python downloader script that helps you download YouTube videos.

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing software in the world. It encourages clients to upload, view, and share videos. Huge numbers of individuals choose YouTube video making as a full-time job as they make and upload recordings and get income. The recordings are viewed on the web, and YouTube didn't give any download choice to offline users. On the off chance that you need to get to the document from the YouTube video, the video should be downloaded. Here, we have mentioned the step-by-step process of creating a YouTube downloader script using Python.

Install PyTube module

Python provides a pytube module that helps in downloading YouTube videos. So, open your terminal window and run the following command to install this module using the pip tool.

pip install pytube

If the above command is not working or returns an error on execution, uninstall it and run the following command.

pip install pytube3

Once the pytube module is installed, create a Python file and import the module at the top of the script.

from pytube import YouTube

Next, to access the features of this module, we need to initialise the class and load the URL as an argument in the YouTube() function.

pytube.YouTube(url)

Python youtube downloader

Here is a very simple example to download a YouTube video. First, we import the pytube library and the object of the YouTube module by passing the link as the parameter. The download() function accepts different parameters to set the video file location and name.

import pytube 

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acvdFEOy-EY'

youtube = pytube.YouTube(url)
video = youtube.streams.first()
video.download('/video', 'phpinterview')

A file downloading takes some time as a very large amount of data is being downloaded from the web.

Pytube get video information

The pytube library provides attributes to get video information, such as a video id, a video title, and so on.

import pytube 

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acvdFEOy-EY'

youtube = pytube.YouTube(url)

print(youtube.title) # Title
print(youtube.video_id) # Id
print(youtube.age_restricted) # Age

The above code returns the following output-

Pytube Streams Format

The YouTube object opens different streams from the YouTube video URL. The given Python program returns all the stream information of the video.

import pytube 

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1SKJQ2rTU&t=8s'

youtube = pytube.YouTube(url)

stream = youtube.streams.all()
for i in stream:
  print(i)

It returns the following output-

<Stream: itag="18" mime_type="video/mp4" res="360p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.42001E" acodec="mp4a.40.2" progressive="True" type="video">
<Stream: itag="22" mime_type="video/mp4" res="720p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.64001F" acodec="mp4a.40.2" progressive="True" type="video">
<Stream: itag="137" mime_type="video/mp4" res="1080p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.64001e" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="248" mime_type="video/webm" res="1080p" fps="30fps" vcodec="vp9" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="136" mime_type="video/mp4" res="720p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.4d4016" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="247" mime_type="video/webm" res="720p" fps="30fps" vcodec="vp9" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="135" mime_type="video/mp4" res="480p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.4d4014" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="244" mime_type="video/webm" res="480p" fps="30fps" vcodec="vp9" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="278" mime_type="video/webm" res="144p" fps="30fps" vcodec="vp9" progressive="False" type="video">
<Stream: itag="140" mime_type="audio/mp4" abr="128kbps" acodec="mp4a.40.2" progressive="False" type="audio">
<Stream: itag="251" mime_type="audio/webm" abr="160kbps" acodec="opus" progressive="False" type="audio">

The "progressive" stream contains the file having both audio and video, and the "adaptive" stream contains either audio or video. The "mime_type", "res", and "fps" attributes can be used to filter the stream of the downloaded video.

Pytube Filter Streams

We can use the filter() method to filter only specific streams. It is helpful when we want to download all the different resolutions of YouTube videos.

import pytube 

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1SKJQ2rTU&t=8s'

youtube = pytube.YouTube(url)

stream = youtube.streams.filter(progressive=True, file_extension='mp4')
for i in stream:
  print(i)

Output of the above code:

(env) c:\python37\Scripts\projects>youtube.py
<Stream: itag="18" mime_type="video/mp4" res="360p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.42001E" acodec="mp4a.40.2" progressive="True" type="video">
<Stream: itag="22" mime_type="video/mp4" res="720p" fps="30fps" vcodec="avc1.64001F" acodec="mp4a.40.2" progressive="True" type="video">

Pytube download high-resolution video

Pytube provides the get_highest_resolution() method to download high-resolution videos. In this given example, we have also used exception handling.

import pytube 

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1SKJQ2rTU&t=8s'

try:
  youtube = pytube.YouTube(url)
  filters = youtube.streams.filter(progressive=True, file_extension='mp4')

  # high resolution video
  filters.get_highest_resolution().download()
  print('Successfully downloaded')
except Exception as e:
  print(e)

Pytube download multiple videos

In the given Python program, we have downloaded multiple videos using the pytube module.

from pytube import YouTube 
  
SAVE_PATH = "C:/" 
  
#link of the video to be downloaded 
download_link=["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acvdFEOy-EY", 
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io_HjpygtH0"
    ]
  
for i in download_link: 
    try: 
        yt = YouTube(i) 
    except: 
        print("Connection Error") 
      
    #filter files with "mp4" extension 
    mp4files = yt.filter('mp4') 
  
    # passed extension and resolution in the get() function 
    download_videos = yt.get(mp4files[-1].extension,mp4files[-1].resolution) 
    try: 
        download_videos.download(SAVE_PATH) 
    except: 
        print("Error in downloading!") 
print('Video downloaded!') 

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