yt-dlp GUI

Simple Windows-friendly GUI wrapper around yt-dlp.

Highlights

• Download: single URL or playlist (including selected playlist items).
• Formats: fetch available resolutions/FPS and pick video+audio or audio-only.
• Playlist preview: thumbnails, multi-select, and "Load more" paging.
• History (MVP): persisted download history with Open folder + Retry.
• Optional: cookies-from-browser and JS runtime + EJS scripts source for YouTube challenges.

See CHECKPOINT.md for recent changes.

Setup (dev)

Create a venv and install dependencies:

python -m venv .venv

Activate:

• Windows (PowerShell):

  .venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

• Windows (cmd):

  .venv\Scripts\activate.bat

• macOS/Linux:

  source .venv/bin/activate

Install:

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

Run

python app.py

Logs

• Each run writes a log file in the per-user app data folder.
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\\yt-dlp-gui\\logs\\
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/yt-dlp-gui/logs/
  • Linux: ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/yt-dlp-gui/logs/

History storage

History is stored as JSON in the per-user app data folder:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\yt-dlp-gui\history.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/yt-dlp-gui/history.json
• Linux: ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/yt-dlp-gui/history.json

Notes on 403 / signature warnings

• If you see "Signature solving failed", select a JS runtime (node/deno/bun) and set "EJS scripts source" to ejs:github or ejs:npm in the UI, then retry.

Windows portable build

See packaging/README_WINDOWS.md and scripts/build_windows.ps1.