Note

A poll is up to decide the future of yt-dlp-web-ui frontend! If you're interested you can take part.
#223

yt-dlp Web UI

A not so terrible web ui for yt-dlp.

High performance extendeable web ui and RPC server for yt-dlp with low impact on resources.

Created for the only purpose of fetching videos from my server/nas and monitor upcoming livestreams.

Docker images are available on Docker Hub or ghcr.io.

docker pull marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui

# latest dev
docker pull ghcr.io/marcopeocchi/yt-dlp-web-ui:latest

Donate to yt-dlp-webui development

PayPal

Keeps the project alive! 😃

Some screeshots

Video showcase

app.webm

Settings

The currently avaible settings are:

• Server address
• Switch theme
• Extract audio
• Switch language
• Optional format selection
• Override the output filename
• Override the output path
• Pass custom yt-dlp arguments safely
• Download queue (limit concurrent downloads)

Format selection

This feature is disabled by default as this intended to be used to retrieve the best quality automatically.

To enable it just go to the settings page and enable the Enable video/audio formats selection flag!

Docker run

docker pull marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui
docker run -d -p 3033:3033 -v <your dir>:/downloads marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui

Or with docker but building the container manually.

docker build -t yt-dlp-webui .
docker run -d -p 3033:3033 -v <your dir>:/downloads yt-dlp-webui

docker run -d -p 3033:3033 \
  -v <your dir>:/downloads \  
  -v <your dir>:/config \ # optional
  yt-dlp-webui

If you opt to add RPC authentication...

docker run -d \
    -p 3033:3033 \
    -e JWT_SECRET randomsecret
    -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads \
    -v /path/for/config:/config \ # optional
    marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui \
    --auth \
    --user your_username \
    --pass your_pass

If you wish for limiting the download queue size...

e.g. limiting max 2 concurrent download.

docker run -d \
    -p 3033:3033 \
    -e JWT_SECRET randomsecret
    -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads \
    marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui \
    --qs 2

Docker Compose

services:
  yt-dlp-webui:
    image: marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui
    ports:
      - 3033:3033
    volumes:
      - <your dir>:/downloads # replace <your dir> with a directory on your host system
    healthcheck:
      test: curl -f http://localhost:3033 || exit 1
    restart: unless-stopped

Prebuilt binaries installation

# download the latest release from the releases page
mv yt-dlp-webui_linux-[your_system_arch] /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp-webui

# /home/user/downloads as an example and yt-dlp in $PATH
yt-dlp-webui --out /home/user/downloads

# specifying yt-dlp path
yt-dlp-webui --out /home/user/downloads --driver /opt/soemdir/yt-dlp

# specifying using a config file
yt-dlp-webui --conf /home/user/.config/yt-dlp-webui.conf

Arguments

Usage yt-dlp-webui:
  -auth
        Enable RPC authentication
  -conf string
        Config file path (default "./config.yml")
  -db string
        local database path (default "local.db")
  -driver string
        yt-dlp executable path (default "yt-dlp")
  -fl
        enable file based logging
  -host string
        Host where server will listen at (default "0.0.0.0")
  -lf string
        set log file location (default "yt-dlp-webui.log")
  -out string
        Where files will be saved (default ".")
  -pass string
        Password required for auth
  -port int
        Port where server will listen at (default 3033)
  -qs int
        Queue size (concurrent downloads) (default 2)
  -session string
        session file path (default ".")
  -user string
        Username required for auth
  -web string
        frontend web resources path

Config file

By running yt-dlp-webui in standalone mode you have the ability to also specify a config file. The config file will overwrite what have been passed as cli argument. With Docker, inside the mounted /conf volume inside there must be a file named config.yml.

# Simple configuration file for yt-dlp webui

---
# Host where server will listen at (default: "0.0.0.0")
#host: 0.0.0.0

# Port where server will listen at (default: 3033)
port: 8989

# Directory where downloaded files will be stored (default: ".")
downloadPath: /home/ren/archive

# [optional] Enable RPC authentication (requires username and password)
require_auth: true
username: my_username
password: my_random_secret

# [optional] The download queue size (default: logical cpu cores)
queue_size: 4 # min. 2

# [optional] Full path to the yt-dlp (default: "yt-dlp")
#downloaderPath: /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

# [optional] Enable file based logging with rotation (default: false)
#enable_file_logging: false

# [optional] Directory where the log file will be stored (default: ".")
#log_path: .

# [optional] Directory where the session database file will be stored (default: ".")
#session_file_path: .

# [optional] Path where the sqlite database will be created/opened (default: "./local.db")
#local_database_path

# [optional] Path where a custom frontend will be loaded (instead of the embedded one)
#frontend_path: ./web/solid-frontend

Systemd integration

By defining a service file in /etc/systemd/system/yt-dlp-webui.service yt-dlp webui can be launched as in background.

[Unit]
Description=yt-dlp-webui service file
After=network.target

[Service]
User=some_user
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp-webui --out /mnt/share/downloads --port 8100

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemctl enable yt-dlp-webui
systemctl start yt-dlp-webui

It could be that yt-dlp-webui works correctly when started manually from the console, but with systemd, it does not see the yt-dlp executable, or has issues writing to the database file. One way to fix these issues could be as follows:

cd
mkdir yt-dlp-webui-workingdir
# optionally move the already existing database file there:
mv local.db yt-dlp-webui-workingdir
nano yt-dlp-webui-workingdir/my.conf

The config file format is described above; make sure to include the downloaderPath setting (the path can possibly be found by running which yt-dlp). For example, one could have:

downloadPath: /stuff/media
downloaderPath: /home/your_user/.local/bin/yt-dlp
log_path: /home/your_user/yt-dlp-webui-workingdir
session_file_path: /home/your_user/yt-dlp-webui-workingdir

Adjust the Service section in the /etc/systemd/system/yt-dlp-webui.service file as follows:

[Service]
User=your_user
Group=your_user
WorkingDirectory=/home/your_user/yt-dlp-webui-workingdir
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp-webui --conf /home/your_user/yt-dlp-webui-workingdir/my.conf

Manual installation

# the dependencies are: yt-dlp, ffmpeg, nodejs, go, make.

make all

Open-API

Navigate to /openapi to see the related swagger.

Extendable

You dont'like the Material feel? Want to build your own frontend? We got you covered 🤠

yt-dlp-webui now exposes a nice JSON-RPC 1.0 interface through Websockets and HTTP-POST It is planned to also expose a gRPC server.

For more information open an issue on GitHub and I will provide more info ASAP.

Custom frontend

To load a custom frontend you need to specify its path either in the config file (see config file) or via flags.

The frontend needs to follow this structure:

path/to/my/frontend
├── assets
│   ├── js-chunk-1.js (example)
│   ├── js-chunk-2.js (example)
│   ├── style.css (example)
└── index.html

assets is where the resources will be loaded.
index.html is the entrypoint.

Nix

This repo adds support for Nix(OS) in various ways through a flake-parts flake. For more info, please refer to the official documentation.

What yt-dlp-webui is not

yt-dlp-webui isn't your ordinary website where to download stuff from the internet, so don't try asking for links of where this is hosted. It's a self hosted platform for a Linux NAS.

Troubleshooting

• It says that it isn't connected.
  • In some circumstances, you must set the server ip address or hostname in the settings section (gear icon).
• The download doesn't start.
  • Simply, yt-dlp process takes a lot of time to fire up. (yt-dlp isn't fast especially if you have a lower-end/low-power NAS/server/desktop. Furthermore some yt-dlp builds are slower than others)