youtube-dl web UI
MeTube
Web GUI for youtube-dl (using the yt-dlp fork) with playlist support. Allows you to download videos from YouTube and dozens of other sites.
Run using Docker
docker run -d -p 8081:8081 -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads ghcr.io/alexta69/metubeRun using docker-compose
version: "3" services: metube: image: ghcr.io/alexta69/metube container_name: metube restart: unless-stopped ports: - "8081:8081" volumes: - /path/to/downloads:/downloadsConfiguration via environment variables
Certain values can be set via environment variables, using the -e
parameter on the docker command line, or the environment:
section in docker-compose.
1000
.1000
.022
.light
, dark
or auto
. Defaults to auto
./downloads
in the docker image, and .
otherwise.DOWNLOAD_DIR
.true
, the download dirs (DOWNLOAD_DIR and AUDIO_DOWNLOAD_DIR) are indexable on the webserver. Defaults to false
.true
.true
./downloads/.metube
in the docker image, and .
otherwise./downloads
in the docker image, and .
otherwise.
tmpfs
) for better performancetrue
, downloaded files are deleted on the server, when they are trashed from the "Completed" section of the UI. Defaults to false
./
.%(title)s.%(ext)s
.%(title)s - %(section_number)s %(section_title)s.%(ext)s
.--recode-video
has to be specified via postprocessors
. Also note that dashes are replaced with underscores.YTDL_OPTIONS
above. Please note that if both YTDL_OPTIONS_FILE
and YTDL_OPTIONS
are specified, the options in YTDL_OPTIONS
take precedence.The following example value for YTDL_OPTIONS
embeds English subtitles and chapter markers (for videos that have them), and also changes the permissions on the downloaded video and sets the file modification timestamp to the date of when it was downloaded:
environment: - 'YTDL_OPTIONS={"writesubtitles":true,"subtitleslangs":["en","-live_chat"],"updatetime":false,"postprocessors":[{"key":"Exec","exec_cmd":"chmod 0664","when":"after_move"},{"key":"FFmpegEmbedSubtitle","already_have_subtitle":false},{"key":"FFmpegMetadata","add_chapters":true}]}'
The following example value for OUTPUT_TEMPLATE
sets:
environment: - 'OUTPUT_TEMPLATE=%(playlist_title&Playlist |)S%(playlist_title|)S%(playlist_uploader& by |)S%(playlist_uploader|)S%(playlist_autonumber& - |)S%(playlist_autonumber|)S%(playlist_count& of |)S%(playlist_count|)S%(playlist_autonumber& - |)S%(uploader,creator|UNKNOWN_AUTHOR)S - %(title|UNKNOWN_TITLE)S - %(release_date>%Y-%m-%d,upload_date>%Y-%m-%d|UNKNOWN_DATE)S.%(ext)s'Using browser cookies
In case you need to use your browser's cookies with MeTube, for example to download restricted or private videos:
volumes: - /path/to/cookies:/cookies environment: - YTDL_OPTIONS={"cookiefile":"/cookies/cookies.txt"}
cookies.txt
Browser extensions allow right-clicking videos and sending them directly to MeTube. Please note that if you're on an HTTPS page, your MeTube instance must be behind an HTTPS reverse proxy (see below) for the extensions to work.
Chrome: contributed by Rpsl. You can install it from Google Chrome Webstore or use developer mode and install from sources.
Firefox: contributed by nanocortex. You can install it from Firefox Addons or get sources from here.
iOS Shortcut
rithask has created an iOS shortcut to send the URL to MeTube from Safari. Initially, you'll need to enter the server address and port, but after that, it will be saved and you can just run the shortcut from the share menu in Safari. The address should include the protocol (http/https) and the port, if it's not the default 80/443. For example: https://metube.example.com
or http://192.168.1.1:8081
. The shortcut can be found here.
Bookmarklet
kushfest has created a Chrome bookmarklet for sending the currently open webpage to MeTube. Please note that if you're on an HTTPS page, your MeTube instance must be behind an HTTPS reverse proxy (see below) for the bookmarklet to work.
GitHub doesn't allow embedding JavaScript as a link, so the bookmarklet has to be created manually by copying the following code to a new bookmark you create on your bookmarks bar. Change the hostname in the URL below to point to your MeTube instance.
javascript:!function(){xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function(){if(xhr.status==200){alert("Sent to metube!")}else{alert("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}}();
shoonya75 has contributed a Firefox version:
javascript:(function(){xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function(){if(xhr.status==200){alert("Sent to metube!")}else{alert("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}})();
The above bookmarklets use alert()
as a success/failure notification. The following will show a toast message instead:
Chrome:
javascript:!function(){function notify(msg) {var sc = document.scrollingElement.scrollTop; var text = document.createElement('span');text.innerHTML=msg;var ts = text.style;ts.all = 'revert';ts.color = '#000';ts.fontFamily = 'Verdana, sans-serif';ts.fontSize = '15px';ts.backgroundColor = 'white';ts.padding = '15px';ts.border = '1px solid gainsboro';ts.boxShadow = '3px 3px 10px';ts.zIndex = '100';document.body.appendChild(text);ts.position = 'absolute'; ts.top = 50 + sc + 'px'; ts.left = (window.innerWidth / 2)-(text.offsetWidth / 2) + 'px'; setTimeout(function () { text.style.visibility = "hidden"; }, 1500);}xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function() { if(xhr.status==200){notify("Sent to metube!")}else {notify("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}}();
Firefox:
javascript:(function(){function notify(msg) {var sc = document.scrollingElement.scrollTop; var text = document.createElement('span');text.innerHTML=msg;var ts = text.style;ts.all = 'revert';ts.color = '#000';ts.fontFamily = 'Verdana, sans-serif';ts.fontSize = '15px';ts.backgroundColor = 'white';ts.padding = '15px';ts.border = '1px solid gainsboro';ts.boxShadow = '3px 3px 10px';ts.zIndex = '100';document.body.appendChild(text);ts.position = 'absolute'; ts.top = 50 + sc + 'px'; ts.left = (window.innerWidth / 2)-(text.offsetWidth / 2) + 'px'; setTimeout(function () { text.style.visibility = "hidden"; }, 1500);}xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function() { if(xhr.status==200){notify("Sent to metube!")}else {notify("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}})();Running behind a reverse proxy
It's advisable to run MeTube behind a reverse proxy, if authentication and/or HTTPS support are required.
When running behind a reverse proxy which remaps the URL (i.e. serves MeTube under a subdirectory and not under root), don't forget to set the URL_PREFIX environment variable to the correct value.
If you're using the linuxserver/swag image for your reverse proxying needs (which I can heartily recommend), it already includes ready snippets for proxying MeTube both in subfolder and subdomain modes under the nginx/proxy-confs
directory in the configuration volume. It also includes Authelia which can be used for authentication.
NGINX
location /metube/ { proxy_pass http://metube:8081; proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade"; proxy_set_header Host $host; }
Note: the extra proxy_set_header
directives are there to make WebSocket work.
Apache
Contributed by PIE-yt. Source here.
# For putting in your Apache sites site.confCaddyServes MeTube under a /metube/ subdir (http://yourdomain.com/metube/)
<Location /metube/> ProxyPass http://localhost:8081/ retry=0 timeout=30 ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:8081/ </Location>
<Location /metube/socket.io> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} transport=websocket [NC] RewriteRule /(.*) ws://localhost:8081/socket.io/$1 [P,L] ProxyPass http://localhost:8081/socket.io retry=0 timeout=30 ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:8081/socket.io </Location>
The following example Caddyfile gets a reverse proxy going behind caddy.
example.com {
route /metube/* {
uri strip_prefix metube
reverse_proxy metube:8081
}
}
Updating yt-dlp
The engine which powers the actual video downloads in MeTube is yt-dlp. Since video sites regularly change their layouts, frequent updates of yt-dlp are required to keep up.
There's an automatic nightly build of MeTube which looks for a new version of yt-dlp, and if one exists, the build pulls it and publishes an updated docker image. Therefore, in order to keep up with the changes, it's recommended that you update your MeTube container regularly with the latest image.
I recommend installing and setting up watchtower for this purpose.
Troubleshooting and submitting issues
Before asking a question or submitting an issue for MeTube, please remember that MeTube is only a UI for yt-dlp. Any issues you might be experiencing with authentication to video websites, postprocessing, permissions, other YTDL_OPTIONS
configurations which seem not to work, or anything else that concerns the workings of the underlying yt-dlp library, need not be opened on the MeTube project. In order to debug and troubleshoot them, it's advised to try using the yt-dlp binary directly first, bypassing the UI, and once that is working, importing the options that worked for you into YTDL_OPTIONS
.
In order to test with the yt-dlp command directly, you can either download it and run it locally, or for a better simulation of its actual conditions, you can run it within the MeTube container itself. Assuming your MeTube container is called metube
, run the following on your Docker host to get a shell inside the container:
docker exec -ti metube sh cd /downloads
Once there, you can use the yt-dlp command freely.
Building and running locally
Make sure you have node.js and Python 3.8 installed.
cd metube/uiinstall Angular and build the UI
npm install node_modules/.bin/ng build
install python dependencies
cd .. pip3 install pipenv pipenv install
run
pipenv run python3 app/main.py
A Docker image can be built locally (it will build the UI too):
docker build -t metube .Development notes
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