Download Media — Download video and audio from web pages

[vitor]

Usage

Download video from a plethora of online sources via the dv keyword. Download audio with da. Your clipboard and frontmost browser tab are checked for links.

• ↩: Download.
• ⌘↩: Download full playlist.
• ⌥↩: Toggle adding to Watch List.
  

Alternatively, download with the Universal Action.

Check download progress via the dp keyword.

• ⌘↩: Restart download.
• ⌃↩: Cancel.
  

⤓ Install on the Alfred Gallery | Source

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by vitor

[vitor]

Before reporting an issue with downloading, open a terminal then copy and paste the following code and press ↩:

PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:${PATH}"
brew upgrade yt-dlp

Then try again. If the download still fails, return to the same terminal window and run:

yt-dlp "YOUR-URL-HERE"

Replacing YOUR-URL-HERE (but keep the double quotes) with the URL that is failing. Then report the error on the yt-dlp issue tracker, as they’re the ones who’ll be able to fix the issue. The workflow relies on that tool for the downloads.

[Ddyracer]

You can change this one pretty easily to do that, as youtube‐dl supports a --extract-audio option. If you need any help doing that, I can point you in the right direction.

I need help.

[vitor]

Here are the instructions on how to change this workflow to get the audio from videos, instead of (or in addition to) the video.

I warn you that it may be a lengthy process (it’s not difficult, it just takes a while, specially if you do not have some things installed).

youtube-dl uses ffmpeg to extract the audio, so you likely need to install it, but I cover that in the instructions.

1. Open a terminal.
2. Install homebrew (if you don’t have it). It might ask you to install XCode’s CLI tools.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

3. Install ffmpeg (again, if you don’t have it) by running

brew install ffmpeg

4. After it finishes, you can close the terminal.
5. Open the workflow, and after that double-click the topmost “Run Script” node.
6. At the top of the code that appears, paste this

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

7. Now you’ll have to make a choice. Keep in mind that it’ll still download the video, but it’ll then extract the audio from it and delete the video (or not, that’s the choice).
8. If you want to always download only the audio, change (a few lines under getfile() {)

python youtube-dl --no-playlist --newline --output "${downdir}/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "${link}" > "${progressfile}"

to 

python youtube-dl --extract-audio --no-playlist --newline --output "${downdir}/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "${link}" > "${progressfile}"

If you want to keep both the audio and video, change it to

python youtube-dl --extract-audio --keep-video --no-playlist --newline --output "${downdir}/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "${link}" > "${progressfile}"

9. You can now save. You’re done.

Steps 2 and 3 can take some time, particularly 3 since it will download and compile from source (ffmpeg can take some time).

If you have any difficulty with any of the steps, please state what problems you’re having, and we can work from there.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Vítor

[vitor]

Update.

The upload JSON was pointing to the wrong files, so you’ll need to download it again to receive further updates.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Vítor

[Ddyracer]

I think I will just convert the video with osx built in encoder. Definitely faster.

[vitor]

I think I will just convert the video with osx built in encoder. Definitely faster.

 

I disagree. If that’s the kind of thing you do so often that you want a workflow, that doing it that way is definitely slower.

The method I’ve outlined takes longer to setup, granted, but you only have to do that once, and in the long run it’s way faster, if only because it’ll be a one step process with a single keyword, instead of a multiple step process where you have to type the keyword, wait for it to download (which varies from video to video), start another process to convert it, wait for that to finish, and delete the video. It’s a small tedious process multiple times, versus a big tedious process once.

Perceived speed is often better than actual speed, psychologically (if only to us, users of software like Alfred). “Set it and forget it” is arguably the better option — that is why workflows are great.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Vítor

[Ddyracer]

I disagree. If that’s the kind of thing you do so often that you want a workflow, that doing it that way is definitely slower.

The method I’ve outlined takes longer to setup, granted, but you only have to do that once, and in the long run it’s way faster, if only because it’ll be a one step process with a single keyword, instead of a multiple step process where you have to type the keyword, wait for it to download (which varies from video to video), start another process to convert it, wait for that to finish, and delete the video. It’s a small tedious process multiple times, versus a big tedious process once.

Perceived speed is often better than actual speed, psychologically (if only to us, users of software like Alfred). “Set it and forget it” is arguably the better option — that is why workflows are great.

After setting it up what do you have to every time for the workflow to work?

I don't DL YouTube vids often so i could just use your workflow, then convert natively I guess.

[vitor]

After setting it up what do you have to every time for the workflow to work?

 

Nothing, that is the point. If you follow my instructions you’ll end up with a modified version of this workflow. You then just need to call it, and it’ll do everything — download the video and get the audio.

[Ddyracer]

Nothing, that is the point. If you follow my instructions you’ll end up with a modified version of this workflow. You then just need to call it, and it’ll do everything — download the video and get the audio.

Nothing, that is the point. If you follow my instructions you’ll end up with a modified version of this workflow. You then just need to call it, and it’ll do everything — download the video and get the audio.

From your first post I got the impression i had to do a little bit of the 13 steps after the setup. Well, ill give it a shot.

[vitor]

Update.

If you have WatchList, you can now add a file directly to it after download (check the original post for details).

Edited April 23, 2013 by Vítor

[npeeps]

Thank you for this amazing extension! I've followed the very detailed steps in setting up the audio extraction but I'm having trouble with it not behaving the way the downvid one works. It doesn't seem to recognize that there is something in the clipboard (i.e. doesn't let me hit enter after entering the keyword).

 

Any help would be appreciated!  Thanks again!

[vitor]

Thank you for this amazing extension! I've followed the very detailed steps in setting up the audio extraction but I'm having trouble with it not behaving the way the downvid one works. It doesn't seem to recognize that there is something in the clipboard (i.e. doesn't let me hit enter after entering the keyword).

 

Any help would be appreciated!  Thanks again!

 

If it doesn’t let you hit enter (as opposed to letting you do it but just not downloading the file), then check the script filter and see if the dropdown on the first line is set to “no argument”.

If you want, you can also post your workflow and I’ll take a look.

[npeeps]

 

If it doesn’t let you hit enter (as opposed to letting you do it but just not downloading the file), then check the script filter and see if the dropdown on the first line is set to “no argument”.

If you want, you can also post your workflow and I’ll take a look.

Thanks for your response! The "no argument" worked, but I'm now not getting audio in the resulting file.

 

I've posted the workflow here. Thank you for your support!

 

http://www.dropbox.com/s/jpj79bxt0vrzrpp/DownVid%20%28Audio%29.alfredworkflow

[vitor]

I think I found the issue; it was actually a problem with the instructions. What happened is that on instruction 11 I’m telling you to read youtube‐dl from a different place where I told you to save it on step 2 (likely because I’ve saved it to a different location to test it before posting the instructions, and forgot to change that).
 
I’ve updated the instructions; see step 11, it now has the corrected code.
 
If it still fails (or even if it succeeds), let me know, maybe there’s something else missing.

[npeeps]

I think I found the issue; it was actually a problem with the instructions. What happened is that on instruction 11 I’m telling you to read youtube‐dl from a different place where I told you to save it on step 2 (likely because I’ve saved it to a different location to test it before posting the instructions, and forgot to change that).

 

I’ve updated the instructions; see step 11, it now has the corrected code.

 

If it still fails (or even if it succeeds), let me know, maybe there’s something else missing.

Thanks for the reply! It runs the script now, but no file is put out (the notifications both come up though).

 

Sorry if this is turning into a hassle for you now!

[albertkinng]

WOW. AMAZING! 

[vitor]

WOW. AMAZING! 

 

Thank you. Glad you liked it.

 

Thanks for the reply! It runs the script now, but no file is put out (the notifications both come up though).

 

Sorry if this is turning into a hassle for you now!

 

No problem. I just noticed something else, you didn’t do steps 7, 8, and 9. It has to be done as a Terminal command, not a script, or else youtube‐dl won’t do the conversion.

[npeeps]

Thank you. Glad you liked it.

 

 

No problem. I just noticed something else, you didn’t do steps 7, 8, and 9. It has to be done as a Terminal command, not a script, or else youtube‐dl won’t do the conversion.

It now opens the terminal, runs the command and outputs this error: python: can't open file '/usr/bin/youtube-dl': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

 

 

I'm going to completely redo it tomorrow and hopefully that'll fix it Thanks for your help!

[vitor]

It now opens the terminal, runs the command and outputs this error: python: can't open file '/usr/bin/youtube-dl': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

 

 

I'm going to completely redo it tomorrow and hopefully that'll fix it Thanks for your help!

That's likely some problem with doing step 1, as that error is basically saying the file is not there.

[DJay]

Thanks for your work. The workflow is downloading a *.flv can I change this to a mp4 to use with my iPhone?

And "how"? Sorry.. Newbie. 

Thanks a lot.

[raguay.customct]

Thanks for your work. The workflow is downloading a *.flv can I change this to a mp4 to use with my iPhone?

And "how"? Sorry.. Newbie. 

Thanks a lot.

 

Hi, just download this http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ and it will convert the flv to any format you want.

[vitor]

Thanks for your work. The workflow is downloading a *.flv can I change this to a mp4 to use with my iPhone?

And "how"? Sorry.. Newbie. 

Thanks a lot.

 

It by default downloads the best quality version available, so it will download different formats for different videos.

 

That said, yes, it’s very easy to do what you want. On the workflow, double‐click the “Run Script” option, and replace the code with this one

if [[ "{query}" == "addToWatchList" ]]; then
	watchlist="${HOME}/Library/Application Support/Alfred 2/Workflow Data/com.vitorgalvao.alfred.watchlist/watchlist.txt"

	filename=$(python youtube-dl -f 22/18/17 -o "${HOME}/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" --get-filename "$(pbpaste)")
	python youtube-dl -f 22/18/17 -o "${HOME}/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$(pbpaste)"

	echo "${filename}" >> "${watchlist}"
	echo "Done."
else
	python youtube-dl -f 22/18/17 -o "${HOME}/Desktop/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$(pbpaste)"
	echo "Done."
fi

The solution is the -f 22/18/17 option, which will download the best version available of either mp4 [720x1280], mp4 [360x640], or mp4 [144x176].

Edited April 26, 2013 by Vítor

[DJay]

great. works like charm. thanks a lot Vítor.

[yoose]

This is a great workflow Vítor thanks for the good work.