youtube-dl Tips and Tricks

### extract videos as mp3 files
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 <video link>

### get highest resolution audio & video
To download a video, you type the URL after the command like so:

youtube-dl <video link>

To select the video quality, first use the -F option to list the available formats, here’s an example,

youtube-dl -F <video link>

Here’s the output:

[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Downloading webpage
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for P9pzm5b6FFY:
format code extension resolution  note 
140         m4a       audio only  DASH audio , audio@128k (worst)
160         mp4       144p        DASH video , video only
133         mp4       240p        DASH video , video only
134         mp4       360p        DASH video , video only
135         mp4       480p        DASH video , video only
136         mp4       720p        DASH video , video only
17          3gp       176x144     
36          3gp       320x240     
5           flv       400x240     
43          webm      640x360     
18          mp4       640x360     
22          mp4       1280x720    (best)

The best quality is 22 so use -f 22 instead of -F to download the MP4 video with 1280x720 resolution like this:

youtube-dl -f 22 <video link>

Or optionally use the following flags to automatically download the best audio and video tracks that are available as a single file:

youtube-dl -f best <video link>

If you encounter any error during the muxing process or an issue with the video quality selection, you can use one of the following commands:

youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/bestvideo+bestaudio' --merge-output-format mp4 <video link>

or as Gabriel Staples pointed out here, the following command will typically select the actual best single file video quality resolution instead of video quality bit-rate:

### merge best audio & best video quality

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU MUST FIRST INSTALL `ffmpeg` to merge audio & video
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

check the info
youtube-dl -F <video link>

Just use `-f bestvideoformatcode+bestaudioformatcode` or `-f bestvideoformatcode+bestaudioformatcode/best` for highest resulting quality available. For example,

youtube-dl -f 315+251 <video link>