Parallel youtube-dl with tmux

00-youtube-dl-tmux.md

to get a list of URLs from a video listing page:

Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('#items a#video-title')).map(a => a.href).join('\n')

put that into a urls file, or gather the URLs some other way

then follow the instructions at https://github.com/dandv/convert-chrome-cookies-to-netscape-format for getting youtube cookies in netscape format in netscape-cookies.txt.

install tmux

run ./download.sh

Check the tmux session for errors (sometimes youtube-dl fails for strange reasons), if needed, you can manually restart the failed tasks

convert-cookies.js

/**
 * @file Convert cookies copy/pasted from Chrome's Application -> Storage -> Cookies -> [domain] table,
 * into the Netscape cookies format used by tools like `curl` or `youtube-dl`.
 * 
 * from: https://github.com/dandv/convert-chrome-cookies-to-netscape-format
 */
 const fs = require('fs');

 const filename = process.argv[2];
 if (!filename) {
   console.error(`Usage: node convert-cookies.js <file-with-cookies-copy-pasted-from-Chrome.txt> > netscape-cookies.txt`);
   console.error();
   console.error(`Make sure to replace <file-with-cookies-copy-pasted-from-Chrome.txt> with the name of the\nfile in which you copy/pasted the cookies from Chrome's Application -> Storage -> Cookies.`);
   console.error(`\nThen, pass the 'netscape-cookies.txt' file to 'curl' or 'youtube-dl' or any other tool\nthat reads cookies in the Netscape cookies format.`);
   process.exit(1);
 }
 
 const content = fs.readFileSync(filename, 'utf8');
 const cookies = content.split('\n');
 
 console.log('# Netscape HTTP Cookie File');
 
 for (const cookie of cookies) {
   let [name, value, domain, path, expiration, /* size */, httpOnly] = cookie.split('\t');
   if (!name)
     continue;
   if (domain.charAt(0) !== '.')
     domain = '.' + domain;
   httpOnly = httpOnly === '✓' ? 'TRUE' : 'FALSE'
   if (expiration === 'Session')
     expiration = new Date(Date.now() + 86400 * 1000);
   expiration = Math.trunc(new Date(expiration).getTime() / 1000);
   console.log([domain, 'TRUE', path, httpOnly, expiration, name, value].join('\t'));
 }
 

download.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

FORMAT="137"
NAME_TEMPLATE="%(upload_date)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s"
COOKIE=$(cat cookie.txt)
SESSION="youtube-dl"

mkdir -p output

tmux new-session -d -s "$SESSION"

I=0
for URL in $(cat urls); do
  if ((I > 0)); then
    tmux split-window -t $SESSION
  fi
  tmux select-layout tiled
  COMMAND="youtube-dl -f \"$FORMAT\" -o \"output/$NAME_TEMPLATE\" --cookies netscape-cookies.txt \"$URL\"; wait"
  tmux send-keys -t $SESSION "$COMMAND" Enter
  ((I++))
done

tmux attach-session -t $SESSION