vYtDL - YouTube Downloader Suite

A complete YouTube downloading toolkit with CLI, desktop app, web UI (Docker), and browser extension. Powered by yt-dlp.

Features

CLI

• Single video or full playlist/collection download
• Format selection (mp4, webm, mkv, etc.)
• Quality selection (720p, 1080p, 2160p, etc.)
• Time-range clipping for downloading specific segments
• Automatic subtitle download (English and Chinese by default)
• Download tracking with JSON or CSV logs
• Subtitle-to-video mapping file generation
• Interactive TUI with live progress bars
• Playlist resume capability - continue interrupted downloads

Desktop App

• Cross-platform GUI (macOS, Linux, Windows)
• Built with Tauri v2 + Next.js + React 19
• Single, Batch, and Smart download modes
• Batch mode — paste multiple URLs or import from .txt file
• Smart mode — batch download with automatic playlist detection
• Download queue with configurable concurrency (1-5 simultaneous downloads)
• Real-time download logs and progress tracking
• Download status persistence in SQLite database
• Retry failed downloads with one click
• Settings and configuration persistence
• AI-powered video summarization
• Multiple language support (English, 中文, 日本語)
• Cross-platform Python launcher script

Web UI (Docker)

• Deploy as a web application via Docker Compose
• Same features as the desktop app, accessible from any browser
• Ideal for NAS, Raspberry Pi, and headless servers
• Real-time updates via WebSocket
• Persistent SQLite database and download storage

URL Extractor (Chrome Extension)

• Extract video URLs from YouTube channel and playlist pages
• Filter by count, include/exclude keywords
• Export selected URLs to text file
• Batch download support

Requirements

• Go 1.24+ - For the CLI
• Node.js 18+ and pnpm - For the desktop app
• Rust - For the Tauri desktop backend
• yt-dlp - Required by CLI and Desktop
• Python 3.6+ - For cross-platform launcher and batch scripts
• Docker & Docker Compose - For the web UI (optional)

Installation

CLI

cd vYtDL
go build -o vYtDL .

Desktop App

cd vYtDL-desktop
pnpm install

Web UI (Docker)

# Start the web server
docker-compose up -d

# Access at http://localhost:3000

Chrome Extension

1. Open Chrome, navigate to chrome://extensions/
2. Enable Developer mode
3. Click Load unpacked
4. Select the url-extractor/ directory

Quick Start

CLI

# Download a single video
./vYtDL download --no-tui "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# Download a playlist
./vYtDL download --no-tui --playlist --output ./downloads "PLAYLIST_URL"

Desktop App

cd vYtDL-desktop

# Check dependencies
python3 scripts/build-desktop.py check

# Development mode
python3 scripts/build-desktop.py dev

# Build production app
python3 scripts/build-desktop.py build

# Build + create distributable package
python3 scripts/build-desktop.py bundle

Web UI (Docker)

# Deploy
docker-compose up -d

# View logs
docker-compose logs -f vytdl-web

# Stop
docker-compose down

Usage

See USAGE.md for detailed CLI usage and docs/ for full project documentation.

Project Structure

├── vYtDL/                    # Go CLI application
├── vYtDL-desktop/            # Desktop app (Tauri + Next.js monorepo)
│   ├── apps/desktop/         # Desktop application
│   ├── packages/ui/          # Shared UI components
│   ├── packages/utils/       # Shared utilities
│   ├── scripts/              # Startup scripts
│   └── web-server/           # Docker web API server
├── url-extractor/            # Chrome extension
├── docker-compose.yml        # Docker Compose for web UI
├── docs/                     # Documentation
└── tasks/                    # Task definitions (PRDs)

License

MIT