Pytube YouTube Downloader

15.0.0 · active · verified Thu Apr 09

Pytube is a Python 3 library designed for downloading YouTube videos and playlists. It handles various resolutions, formats, and audio-only extractions. Currently at version 15.0.0, it maintains an active release cadence, primarily updating to adapt to frequent changes in YouTube's frontend, which it scrapes to function.

Warnings

breaking Pytube relies on scraping YouTube's frontend, making it highly susceptible to breaking changes when YouTube updates its site. This often manifests as `KeyError`, `RegexMatchError`, `HTTPError` (404, 403), or `AgeRestrictedError`.
Fix: Update `pytube` to the latest version immediately if you encounter download failures or errors. Check the GitHub repository for recent issues or workarounds.
breaking Since version 11.0.0, downloading age-restricted videos explicitly requires user authentication. Attempts to download without authentication will raise an `AgeRestrictedError`.
Fix: If you need to download age-restricted content, you must implement an OAuth flow (using `pytube.request.get_auth_gmt()`) to obtain necessary cookies for authentication. Refer to the `pytube` documentation for authentication examples.
gotcha Pytube does not support downloading live streams. As of version 10.8.3, attempts to process a livestream URL will raise an exception (e.g., `LiveStreamError`).
Fix: Ensure the URL points to a non-live video. There is no built-in `pytube` mechanism to download ongoing live streams.
gotcha YouTube occasionally implements download throttling mechanisms by obfuscating URL parameters (e.g., the 'n' cipher). While `pytube` actively releases updates to bypass this (e.g., v10.9.0), issues can recur.
Fix: If download speeds are unusually slow or downloads fail, update `pytube` to the latest version. This issue is usually addressed quickly by the maintainers.

Install

pip install pytube Install latest version

Imports

YouTube
```
from pytube import YouTube
```
Playlist
```
from pytube import Playlist
```
Search
```
from pytube import Search
```

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to initialize a YouTube object with a video URL and download the highest resolution stream to a local 'downloads' directory. It includes basic error handling.

from pytube import YouTube

# Example: Download the highest resolution of a video
video_url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ' # Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up

try:
    yt = YouTube(video_url)
    print(f"Downloading: {yt.title}...")
    
    # Get the highest resolution stream
    stream = yt.streams.get_highest_resolution()
    
    # Or, filter by resolution and file extension
    # stream = yt.streams.filter(res="720p", file_extension='mp4').first()

    if stream:
        stream.download(output_path='./downloads')
        print(f"Successfully downloaded '{yt.title}' to ./downloads")
    else:
        print("No suitable stream found.")

except Exception as e:
    print(f"An error occurred: {e}")

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