blob-dl is a command line tool used to download video and audio files from YouTube
Have you ever had to download videos from YouTube?
The process can be quite a pain because you will have to either spend your time closing pop-ups from a sketchy website or browsing through yt-dlp's documentation.
blob-dl at its core is a very noob-friendly way to use yt-dlp: it asks a series of questions and then generates and executes a command that fits your needs.
See the Features section for more details on what this program can do
The most straightforward way to install blob-dl is to use the binaries
Alternatively, if you are a Rust programmer you can install blob-dl with cargo
$ cargo install blob-dl
blob-dl calls yt-dlp directly, so it cannot function without it.
If you don't already have it, install yt-dlp following this guide here.
You also need to install yt-dlp's recommended dependencies.
When you fire up blob-dl it asks you What kind of file(s) do you want to download?
The answer you choose determines which formats you will be able to pick later on: if you answer that you want to download audio-only files, then formats containing video will be hidden.
The second question Which quality or format do you want to apply to the video? allows you to choose a specific format, quality, filesize, ...
The available answers mean these things:
Best possible quality tells yt-dlp to automatically choose the best quality, for more information see yt-dlp's wiki
Smallest file size uses the format which results in the smallest file size
Choose a format to recode the video to requires ffmpeg: after the video is downloaded, it is converted to a file format of your choosing
Choose a format to download the video in doesn't require ffmpeg: it shows a list of formats directly available for download from YouTube without needing to convert anything
blob-dl will ask further questions, but they are self-explanatory
blob-dl was designed to download large song playlists directly as audio files. Choosing between downloading audio files, normal video files or video-only files is very easy
While downloading, blob-dl keeps track of any errors thrown by yt-dlp and reports them at the end, the ones caused which can be resolved by re-trying the download can be easily re-downloaded
This program is intended for anyone who needs to download things from YouTube without having to remember yt-dlp's syntax. blob-dl can do everything an average user needs
yt-dlp power-users with very specific needs probably won't find this program useful
I was tired of spending hours downloading music videos and converting them to audio, so I wrote this program to make everything way easier
This logo was inspired by @Primer's blob plushie
