diff options
Diffstat (limited to '_posts/2018-12-21-using-youtube-dl-to-manage-youtube-subscriptions.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | _posts/2018-12-21-using-youtube-dl-to-manage-youtube-subscriptions.md | 279 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 279 deletions
diff --git a/_posts/2018-12-21-using-youtube-dl-to-manage-youtube-subscriptions.md b/_posts/2018-12-21-using-youtube-dl-to-manage-youtube-subscriptions.md deleted file mode 100644 index 21b6686..0000000 --- a/_posts/2018-12-21-using-youtube-dl-to-manage-youtube-subscriptions.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,279 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Using "youtube-dl" to manage YouTube subscriptions -date: 2018-12-21 -layout: post ---- -I\'ve recently read the -[announcement](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/9sg8q5/i_built_a_selfhosted_youtube_subscription_manager/) -of a very nice [self-hosted YouTube subscription -manager](https://github.com/chibicitiberiu/ytsm). I haven\'t used -YouTube\'s built-in subscriptions for a while now, and haven\'t missed -it at all. When I saw the announcement, I considered writing about the -solution I\'ve built on top of [youtube-dl](https://youtube-dl.org/). - -Background: the problem with YouTube ------------------------------------- - -In many ways, I agree with [André Staltz\'s view on data ownership and -privacy](https://staltz.com/what-happens-when-you-block-internet-giants.html): - -> I started with the basic premise that "I want to be in control of my -> data". Sometimes that meant choosing when to interact with an internet -> giant and how much I feel like revealing to them. Most of times it -> meant not interacting with them at all. I don't want to let them be in -> full control of how much they can know about me. I don't want to be in -> autopilot mode. (...) Which leads us to YouTube. While I was able to -> find alternatives to Gmail (Fastmail), Calendar (Fastmail), Translate -> (Yandex Translate), etc, YouTube remains as the most indispensable -> Google-owned web service. It is really really hard to avoid consuming -> YouTube content. It was probably the smartest startup acquisition -> ever. My privacy-oriented alternative is to watch YouTube videos -> through Tor, which is technically feasible but not polite to use the -> Tor bandwidth for these purposes. I'm still scratching my head with -> this issue. - -Even though I don\'t use most alternative services he mentions, I do -watch videos from YouTube. But I also feel uncomfortable logging in to -YouTube with a Google account, watching videos, creating playlists and -similar things. - -Using the mobile app is worse: you can\'t even block ads in there. -You\'re in less control on what you share with YouTube and Google. - -youtube-dl ----------- - -youtube-dl is a command-line tool for downloading videos, from YouTube -and [many other -sites](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html): - -``` {.shell} -$ youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMYZnY3uLA -[youtube] rnMYZnY3uLA: Downloading webpage -[youtube] rnMYZnY3uLA: Downloading video info webpage -[download] Destination: A Origem da Vida _ Nerdologia-rnMYZnY3uLA.mp4 -[download] 100% of 32.11MiB in 00:12 -``` - -It can be used to download individual videos as showed above, but it -also has some interesting flags that we can use: - -- `--output`: use a custom template to create the name of the - downloaded file; -- `--download-archive`: use a text file for recording and remembering - which videos were already downloaded; -- `--prefer-free-formats`: prefer free video formats, like `webm`, - `ogv` and Matroska `mkv`; -- `--playlist-end`: how many videos to download from a \"playlist\" (a - channel, a user or an actual playlist); -- `--write-description`: write the video description to a - `.description` file, useful for accessing links and extra content. - -Putting it all together: - -``` {.shell} -$ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClu474HMt895mVxZdlIHXEA" \ - --download-archive ~/Nextcloud/cache/youtube-dl-seen.conf \ - --prefer-free-formats \ - --playlist-end 20 \ - --write-description \ - --output "~/Downloads/yt-dl/%(uploader)s/%(upload_date)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" -``` - -This will download the latest 20 videos from the selected channel, and -write down the video IDs in the `youtube-dl-seen.conf` file. Running it -immediately after one more time won\'t have any effect. - -If the channel posts one more video, running the same command again will -download only the last video, since the other 19 were already -downloaded. - -With this basic setup you have a minimal subscription system at work, -and you can create some functions to help you manage that: - -``` {.shell} -#!/bin/sh - -export DEFAULT_PLAYLIST_END=15 - -download() { - youtube-dl "$1" \ - --download-archive ~/Nextcloud/cache/youtube-dl-seen.conf \ - --prefer-free-formats \ - --playlist-end $2 \ - --write-description \ - --output "~/Downloads/yt-dl/%(uploader)s/%(upload_date)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" -} -export -f download - - -download_user() { - download "https://www.youtube.com/user/$1" ${2-$DEFAULT_PLAYLIST_END} -} -export -f download_user - - -download_channel() { - download "https://www.youtube.com/channel/$1" ${2-$DEFAULT_PLAYLIST_END} -} -export -f download_channel - - -download_playlist() { - download "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=$1" ${2-$DEFAULT_PLAYLIST_END} -} -export -f download_playlist -``` - -With these functions, you now can have a subscription fetching script to -download the latest videos from your favorite channels: - -``` {.shell} -#!/bin/sh - -download_user ClojureTV 15 -download_channel "UCmEClzCBDx-vrt0GuSKBd9g" 100 -download_playlist "PLqG7fA3EaMRPzL5jzd83tWcjCUH9ZUsbX" 15 -``` - -Now, whenever you want to watch the latest videos, just run the above -script and you\'ll get all of them in your local machine. - -Tradeoffs ---------- - -### I\'ve made it for myself, with my use case in mind - -1. Offline - - My internet speed it somewhat reasonable[^1], but it is really - unstable. Either at work or at home, it\'s not uncommon to loose - internet access for 2 minutes 3\~5 times every day, and stay - completely offline for a couple of hours once every week. - - Working through the hassle of keeping a playlist on disk has payed - off many, many times. Sometimes I even not notice when the - connection drops for some minutes, because I\'m watching a video and - working on some document, all on my local computer. - - There\'s also no quality adjustment for YouTube\'s web player, I - always pick the higher quality and it doesn\'t change during the - video. For some types of content, like a podcast with some tiny - visual resources, this doesn\'t change much. For other types of - content, like a keynote presentation with text written on the - slides, watching on 144p isn\'t really an option. - - If the internet connection drops during the video download, - youtube-dl will resume from where it stopped. - - This is an offline first benefit that I really like, and works well - for me. - -2. Sync the \"seen\" file - - I already have a running instance of Nextcloud, so just dumping the - `youtube-dl-seen.conf` file inside Nextcloud was a no-brainer. - - You could try putting it in a dedicated git repository, and wrap the - script with an autocommit after every run. If you ever had a merge - conflict, you\'d simply accept all changes and then run: - - ``` {.shell} - $ uniq youtube-dl-seen.conf > youtube-dl-seen.conf - ``` - - to tidy up the file. - -3. Doesn\'t work on mobile - - My primary device that I use everyday is my laptop, not my phone. It - works well for me this way. - - Also, it\'s harder to add ad-blockers to mobile phones, and most - mobile software still depends on Google\'s and Apple\'s blessing. - - If you wish, you can sync the videos to the SD card periodically, - but that\'s a bit of extra manual work. - -### The Good - -1. Better privacy - - We don\'t even have to configure the ad-blocker to keep ads and - trackers away! - - YouTube still has your IP address, so using a VPN is always a good - idea. However, a timing analysis would be able to identify you - (considering the current implementation). - -2. No need to self-host - - There\'s no host that needs maintenance. Everything runs locally. - - As long as you keep youtube-dl itself up to date and sync your - \"seen\" file, there\'s little extra work to do. - -3. Track your subscriptions with git - - After creating a `subscriptions.sh` executable that downloads all - the videos, you can add it to git and use it to track metadata about - your subscriptions. - -### The Bad - -1. Maximum playlist size is your disk size - - This is a good thing for getting a realistic view on your actual - \"watch later\" list. However I\'ve run out of disk space many - times, and now I need to be more aware of how much is left. - -### The Ugly - -We can only avoid all the bad parts of YouTube with youtube-dl as long -as YouTube keeps the videos public and programmatically accessible. If -YouTube ever blocks that we\'d loose the ability to consume content this -way, but also loose confidence on considering YouTube a healthy -repository of videos on the internet. - -Going beyond ------------- - -Since you\'re running everything locally, here are some possibilities to -be explored: - -### A playlist that is too long for being downloaded all at once - -You can wrap the `download_playlist` function (let\'s call the wrapper -`inc_download`) and instead of passing it a fixed number to the -`--playlist-end` parameter, you can store the `$n` in a folder -(something like `$HOME/.yt-db/$PLAYLIST_ID`) and increment it by `$step` -every time you run `inc_download`. - -This way you can incrementally download videos from a huge playlist -without filling your disk with gigabytes of content all at once. - -### Multiple computer scenario - -The `download_playlist` function could be aware of the specific machine -that it is running on and apply specific policies depending on the -machine: always download everything; only download videos that aren\'t -present anywhere else; etc. - -Conclusion ----------- - -youtube-dl is a great tool to keep at hand. It covers a really large -range of video websites and works robustly. - -Feel free to copy and modify this code, and [send -me](mailto:eu@euandre.org) suggestions of improvements or related -content. - -*Edit* ------- - -2019/05/22: Fix spelling. - -[^1]: Considering how expensive it is and the many ways it could be - better, but also how much it has improved over the last years, I say - it\'s reasonable. |