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@ivanskodje
Last active August 10, 2024 20:08
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youtube-dl for downloading pluralsight videos

Downloading Videos from Pluralsight

Disclaimer

Pluralsight do not permit users to download their videos.
If you are an user of pluralsight you have agreed with their ToS,
and are thusly refrained from doing so.
Use this knowledge at your own risk.

youtube-dl for Windows

youtube-dl will allow you to download entire video series just by pasting in the link to the course. This includes english subtitles where applicable.

1. Download youtube-dl

You can get it here from their official web-site.

2. Create a bat script file

We need to create bat script that will store all the information we need to quickly and easily download videos from pluralsight. Create a new file and name it 'pluralsight.bat'. Put it in the same folder as youtube-dl.exe (from step 1).

3. Paste in the script in the file

for %%a in (%*) do (
.\youtube-dl.exe ^
--username YOUR-USERNAME-HERE ^
--password YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE ^
%%a ^
-o "C:/Users/YOUR-USERNAME-HERE/Videos/Pluralsight/%%(playlist)s/%%(chapter_number)02d - %%(chapter)s/%%(playlist_index)02d - %%(title)s.%%(ext)s" ^ --sleep-interval 35 ^
--max-sleep-interval 120 ^
--sub-lang en ^
--sub-format srt ^
--write-sub
)

  1. Remember to add your own username, password and the path to where you want the videos to be stored. Replace YOUR-USERNAME-HERE, YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE and YOUR-NAME-HERE.
  2. If you wish to change the formatting of the output video files, you can learn more about it here.

4. Begin downloading videos

In order to run the scripts, you need to open up a command prompt or Windows PowerShell. Navigate to the folder you have the script and youtube-dl.exe. Hold left-shift and right mouse click in the folder, and select 'Open PowerShell Window here' or the 'Command Prompt' equivalent.

All you have to do now in order to download pluralsight videos, is to run:

.\pluralsight.bat [URL-HERE]

You can also add multiple URLs, separated by a space:

.\pluralsight.bat [URL1] [URL2] [URL3]

If you open up a text editor (for copy/paste), you can also prepare all your URL in a similar fashion:

pluralsight-dl ^
[URL1] ^
[URL2] ^
[URL3]

URL is usually formatted similar to https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/some-course-name


youtube-dl for Linux

youtube-dl will allow you to download entire video series just by pasting in the link to the course. This includes english subtitles where applicable.

1. Download youtube-dl

You can get it here from their official web-site.

2. Create the bash script file

We are going to create bash script that will store all the information we need to quickly and easily download videos from pluralsight. Make sure you save it inside /bin, as it will allow us to run the 'pluralsight-dl' command from anywhere.

sudo touch /usr/local/bin/pluralsight-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/pluralsight-dl
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/pluralsight-dl

3. Paste in the script

#!/bin/bash
for i in "$@";
do

youtube-dl \
--username YOUR-USERNAME-HERE \
--password YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE \
"$i" \
-o "/home/YOUR-USERNAME-HERE/Videos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)02d - %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)02d - %(title)s.%(ext)s" \
--sleep-interval 35 \
--max-sleep-interval 120 \
--sub-lang en \
--sub-format srt \
--write-sub

done

  1. Remember to add your own username, password and the path to where you want the videos to be stored. Replace YOUR-USERNAME-HERE, YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE and YOUR-NAME-HERE.
  2. If you wish to change the formatting of the output video files, you can learn more about it here.

3. Begin downloading videos

All you have to do now in order to download pluralsight videos, is to run:

pluralsight-dl [URL-HERE]

You can also add multiple URLs, separated by a space:

pluralsight-dl [URL1] [URL2] [URL3]

If you open up a text editor (for copy/paste), you can also prepare all your URL in a similar fashion:

pluralsight-dl \
[URL1] \
[URL2] \
[URL3]

URL is usually formatted similar to https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/some-course-name

@goombah88
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Or this error...

ERROR: core-python-implementing-iterators-iterables-collections: Failed to parse JSON (caused by ValueError('No JSON object could be decoded',)); please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; type youtube-dl -U to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

@Shakil-Shahadat
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@goombah88 use yt-dlp.

@DaveBoltman
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Has anyone managed this lately, seeing as it's Free Pluralsight Week? I've reported this JSON bug - seems they changed something in about March 2022

@SunnyOswal
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@DaveBoltman +1 looking for the same

@sailendrap
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I can confirm that even after following all suggestions their system blocked me. It just annoys me that I am informed of the access for a year "after" I have already paid for one of their bundles from HB...

I have reset my password and got access again. They mentioned that if this behaviour is detected 3 times, your account gets permanently blocked. If anyone was able to download the Kubernetes bundle on HB and can share it via torrent I would greatly appreciate it!

I have Internet Download Manager software - which detects each video separately - you cannot batch download the videos. But its better than not being able to download at all.

Also with youtube-dl on Windows the JSON error referenced in the previous comments still persists.

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