Video Download

Name: Video Download
Author: heygen-com

heygen-com/skills-legacy

6 installs
Updated April 14, 2026
heygen-com/skills-legacy

Downloads video, audio, subtitles, and metadata from YouTube and 1000+ sites using yt-dlp.

About

Downloads video and audio from YouTube and 1000+ sites using yt-dlp, including audio extraction, subtitles, and metadata. A developer uses it to pull media from a URL without any API keys.

Uses yt-dlp directly, no API keys needed
Downloads video/audio/subtitles/metadata from YouTube and 1000+ sites

Video Download by the numbers

6 all-time installs (skills.sh)
+1 installs in the week ending Aug 2, 2026 (Skillselion tracking)
Ranked #1,691 of 2,715 Automation & Workflows skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
Data as of Aug 2, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)

npx skills add https://github.com/heygen-com/skills-legacy --skill video-download

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Installs	6
Last updated	April 14, 2026
Repository	heygen-com/skills-legacy ↗

What it does

Downloads video, audio, subtitles, and metadata from YouTube and 1000+ sites using yt-dlp.

Files

SKILL.mdMarkdownGitHub ↗

video-download

Download video and audio from URLs using yt-dlp directly. No wrapper scripts needed.

Prerequisites

yt-dlp: brew install yt-dlp or pip install yt-dlp
ffmpeg: brew install ffmpeg or apt install ffmpeg (required for merging video+audio streams)

Update yt-dlp periodically to keep up with site changes: yt-dlp -U or pip install -U yt-dlp.

Commands

Download best quality

yt-dlp "URL" -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --merge-output-format mp4

Download specific resolution

# 720p
yt-dlp "URL" -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best[height<=720]" --merge-output-format mp4

# 1080p
yt-dlp "URL" -f "bestvideo[height<=1080]+bestaudio/best[height<=1080]" --merge-output-format mp4

Audio only

yt-dlp "URL" -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0

Download subtitles

# Download video with English subtitles
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs en --merge-output-format mp4

# Download video with multiple subtitle languages
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs "en,es,fr" --merge-output-format mp4

# Download only subtitles (no video)
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs en --skip-download

Get metadata (no download)

yt-dlp "URL" --dump-json --no-download

List available formats

yt-dlp "URL" -F

Specify output directory

yt-dlp "URL" -o "./downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" --merge-output-format mp4

Quality Presets

Quality	Format flag
Best	`-f "bestvideo+bestaudio/best"` (default)
1080p	`-f "bestvideo[height<=1080]+bestaudio/best[height<=1080]"`
720p	`-f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best[height<=720]"`
480p	`-f "bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]"`
Worst	`-f "worstvideo+worstaudio/worst"`

Output Template Variables

Common variables for -o templates:

Variable	Description
`%(title)s`	Video title
`%(ext)s`	File extension
`%(id)s`	Video ID
`%(uploader)s`	Channel/uploader name
`%(upload_date)s`	Upload date (YYYYMMDD)
`%(duration)s`	Duration in seconds
`%(resolution)s`	Video resolution

Tips

Always use --merge-output-format mp4 to avoid ending up with .webm or .mkv files.
Use --no-download with --dump-json for metadata-only queries -- no files written to disk.
If a download fails with HTTP errors, update yt-dlp first (yt-dlp -U).
Use -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio" to save bandwidth when full resolution is not needed.
yt-dlp automatically handles rate limiting and retries.
The --dump-json output includes title, duration, uploader, view_count, description, formats, subtitles, and much more.

Troubleshooting

"yt-dlp: command not found": Install it (pip install yt-dlp) and ensure your PATH includes pip's bin directory.
"ffmpeg: command not found": Install ffmpeg. Without it, downloads fail when video and audio are separate streams (common on YouTube for HD).
Downloads fail or return errors: Run yt-dlp -U to update. Sites change frequently and yt-dlp ships fixes regularly.