yt-dlp.net publishes documentation. You may read it, copy the commands out of it and use them. What you point those commands at is between you and whoever owns what is on the other end.

No warranty

Everything here is provided as is. Commands are tested before publication against the yt-dlp release named on each page, but yt-dlp changes, the sites it talks to change more often, and a command that worked in July can fail in August through no fault of anyone's. Nothing on this site is a guarantee that it will work, and we are not liable for what happens when it does not — including lost time, lost files, or a command that did something other than what you expected.

Downloading things you do not own

yt-dlp is a general-purpose tool. It can retrieve a video you uploaded yourself, a lecture from a course you paid for, a public-domain film — and it can retrieve things you have no right to keep. The tool does not know the difference and neither do we.

Copyright law, and the terms of service of the site you are downloading from, apply to you regardless of what any guide here says. YouTube's terms, for instance, prohibit downloading except through features they provide. Guides on this site that cover cookies, private videos or members-only content exist because there are legitimate reasons to need them; publishing them is not advice to use them where you have no right to. That judgement is yours, and so is the liability that follows it.

Not affiliated

This site is independent. It is not run by, endorsed by or connected to the yt-dlp project, YouTube, Google, or any other service named in its guides. "yt-dlp" is the name of the software these guides document; all trademarks belong to their owners.

yt-dlp itself is released into the public domain under the Unlicense and is free to use. If you were asked to pay for it, you were not on the yt-dlp project's site.

The content of this site

The commands are facts about a program and belong to nobody. The writing around them is ours. Quote it, link it, use the commands in your own work freely; please do not republish whole pages as your own, which is both rude and — given how much of this niche is already copies of copies — unhelpful to the people searching.

Changes

These terms may be revised. The current version is always the one at this URL, and material changes move the date at the top of the page.