yt-dlp GUI

A modern, beautiful desktop GUI for yt-dlp.

Download videos from YouTube, Bilibili, Twitter/X and 1000+ websites with ease.

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Why yt-dlp GUI?

yt-dlp is powerful, but its command-line interface can be intimidating. yt-dlp GUI wraps it in a clean, native desktop app — no terminal needed.

• Zero config to start — paste a link, pick a quality, click download
• Native & lightweight — built with Tauri 2 + Rust, ~10 MB installer, low memory usage
• Cross-platform — Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Multilingual — 7 languages with auto-detection

Features

Core

• Paste a video URL and instantly preview title, thumbnail, duration, and available formats
• Choose video quality, audio-only, or video-only downloads
• Download queue with pause / resume / cancel controls
• Real-time progress with speed and ETA display
• Playlist support — download all or selected items
• Configurable concurrent downloads and fragment threading

Toolbox

• Thumbnail Downloader — browse and save all available cover images in any resolution
• Subtitle Extractor — download subtitles in SRT / VTT / ASS / LRC, with bilingual merge support
• Live Chat Archiver — extract YouTube live chat replay, filter with regex, export as JSON / CSV
• Plugin Manager — install yt-dlp plugins (e.g. ChromeCookieUnlock) with one click
• Browser Extension — companion Chrome / Edge extension that sends the page URL and required cookies to the app with one click (details)

Advanced

• Custom filename templates with rich variables (title, author, date, resolution, etc.)
• Time-based clip trimming — download only a segment of the video
• Re-encode to MP4 / MKV / WebM / MP3 / AAC / FLAC and more
• Embed subtitles, thumbnails, metadata, and chapters into the output file
• SponsorBlock integration — automatically skip sponsored segments
• Cookie authentication for age-restricted or members-only content
• Proxy support (HTTP / SOCKS)
• Download speed limiter
• Light / Dark / Auto theme
• Download completion notifications (in-app and/or system)

Screenshots

Home (Dark)	Home (Light)

Download Options	Extra Options

Downloading	Tools

Getting Started

Download

Grab the latest release for your platform from Releases:

Arch Linux

Use the x86_64 AppImage from the release page. AppImage uses FUSE 2 on Arch, so install the compatibility package once, make the download executable, and run it:

sudo pacman -S fuse2
chmod +x YDL.GUI_*.AppImage
./YDL.GUI_*.AppImage

If FUSE cannot be enabled in your environment, run the same file with --appimage-extract-and-run instead. The AppImage is portable and does not require a system-wide package installation.

First Launch

1. Open the app and go to Settings
2. Click Download next to yt-dlp — the binary is fetched automatically
3. (Optional) Install Deno runtime for full YouTube format support
4. Set your download directory
5. Go back to the home page, paste a URL, and start downloading

[!TIP] If you encounter login-required videos, configure Cookie in settings using Netscape format text or a cookie file.

Command-line automation

An installed YDL GUI instance can be opened from scripts with session-specific inputs:

yt-dlp-gui --url "https://example.com/video" \
  --cookies "/path/to/cookies.txt" \
  --dir "/path/to/downloads" \
  --yt-dlp-path "/path/to/yt-dlp" \
  --deno-path "/path/to/deno"

--flag=value is also accepted, and an HTTP(S) URL may be passed without --url. Tool path overrides apply only to the current app session and are never updated or replaced by the app. Re-running the command forwards the request to an already-open instance.

Browser Extension

A companion YDL GUI Helper browser extension lives in browser-extension/. It sends the current tab's URL and required cookies straight to the desktop app via a local protocol handler (ytdlp-gui://) — no copy-paste, no extra cookie export.

Highlights

• One-click send from the popup, or right-click context menu (Send page to YDL GUI / Download link with YDL GUI / Send selected URL to YDL GUI)
• Action badge lights up automatically on supported video sites
• Auto light / dark theme that follows your system
• Cookies are processed locally — passed straight to the app via the local protocol, never uploaded anywhere

Install (Chrome / Edge / Brave / Vivaldi etc.)

The extension is bundled with the app — no separate download required.

1. In the app, open Toolbox → Browser Extension and click Open extension folder.
2. Open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions) and turn on Developer mode in the top-right.
3. Click Load unpacked and select the folder revealed in step 1.
4. Pin the YDL GUI Helper icon next to the address bar.

Use

1. Open a supported video page (YouTube, Bilibili, Twitch, Vimeo, Twitter/X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, SoundCloud, etc.).
2. Click the YDL GUI icon, or right-click the page / a video link and choose Send to YDL GUI.
3. The desktop app comes to the front automatically with the URL and cookies pre-filled.

[!NOTE] Make sure the YDL GUI desktop app is installed and running for the protocol handler to fire.

Tech Stack

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 22
• pnpm >= 11
• Rust

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/imsyy/yt-dlp-gui.git
cd yt-dlp-gui

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Run in development mode (Vite + Tauri)
pnpm tauri:dev

# Build for production
pnpm tauri:build

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

MIT © imsyy