YoutubeDL-Material

YoutubeDL-Material is a Material Design frontend for youtube-dl / yt-dlp workflows. It's coded using Angular 21 for the frontend, and Node.js on the backend.

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Getting Started

Check out the prerequisites, and go to the installation section. Easy as pie!

Here's an image of what it'll look like once you're done:

Dark mode:

Prerequisites

NOTE: If you would like to use Docker, you can skip down to the Docker section for a setup guide.

Required dependencies:

• Node.js 24 (npm 10+)
• Python 3

Optional dependencies:

• AtomicParsley (for embedding thumbnails, package name atomicparsley)
• Twitch Downloader CLI (for downloading Twitch VOD chats)

Debian/Ubuntu

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_24.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs ffmpeg unzip python3 python3-pip
# Optional but recommended for local installs:
python3 -m pip install --user yt-dlp yt-dlp-ejs

Installing

If you are using Docker, skip to the Docker section. Otherwise, continue:

1. First, download the latest release!

2. Drag the youtubedl-material directory to an easily accessible directory. Navigate to the appdata folder and edit the default.json file.

NOTE: If you are intending to use a reverse proxy, this next step is not necessary

3. Port forward the port listed in default.json, which defaults to 17442.

4. Once the configuration is done, install and start the backend:

npm install --prefix backend
npm start --prefix backend

This runs the backend server, which serves the frontend as well. On your browser, navigate to the server URL with the configured port. Try putting in a YouTube link to see if it works.

If you experience problems, know that it's usually caused by a configuration problem. The first thing you should do is check the console. To get there, right click anywhere on the page and click "Inspect element." Then on the menu that pops up, click console. Look at the error there, and try to investigate.

Build it yourself

If you'd like to install YoutubeDL-Material, go to the Installation section. If you want to build it yourself and/or develop the repository, then this section is for you.

To deploy from source, clone the repository and go into the youtubedl-material directory.

Requirements for local builds:

• Node.js >=24 <26
• npm >=10

Install dependencies and build the frontend:

npm install
npm install --prefix backend
npm run build

This builds the app and puts the output files in backend/public.

NOTE: npm start in the repo root starts the Angular dev server (ng serve). To run the backend app, use npm start --prefix backend.

Angular 21 / Videogular install note

The repo currently uses Angular 21 and @videogular/ngx-videogular@20. Videogular 20 still declares Angular 20 peer ranges, so the repository includes a temporary .npmrc with legacy-peer-deps=true.

Please keep this file when building locally or in Docker until Videogular publishes Angular 21 peer support.

Run backend

Install pm2 globally, then start the backend:

npm -g install pm2
npm start --prefix backend

If you want your instance available outside your network, set up a reverse proxy or port forward the configured backend port (default 17442).

Docker

Host-specific instructions

If you're on a Synology NAS, unRAID, Raspberry Pi 4 or any other possible special case you can check if there's known issues or instructions both in the issue tracker and in the Wiki!

Note: official ARMv7 Docker image builds have been retired. Use amd64 / arm64 images or build locally for unsupported architectures.

Setup

If you are looking to setup YoutubeDL-Material with Docker, this section is for you. And you're in luck! Docker setup is quite simple.

1. Run curl -L https://github.com/voc0der/YoutubeDL-Material/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml -o docker-compose.yml to download the latest Docker Compose, or go to the releases page to grab the version you'd like.
2. Run docker compose pull (or docker-compose pull on older Docker setups). This will download the official YoutubeDL-Material docker image.
3. Run docker compose up -d (or docker-compose up -d) to start it up. The container exposes port 17442 internally. Please check your docker-compose.yml file for the external port. If you downloaded the file as described above, it defaults to 8998.
4. Make sure you can connect to the specified URL + external port, and if so, you are done!

Docker environment variables (click to expand)

Common Docker env vars used by the provided docker-compose.yml (plus logging):

• ytdl_mongodb_connection_string: MongoDB connection string (default compose file points to mongodb://ytdl-mongo-db:27017)
• ytdl_use_local_db: set to 'false' to use MongoDB instead of the local JSON DB
• write_ytdl_config: set to 'true' to write env-backed settings into appdata/default.json on startup
• UID / GID: set the app user/group IDs used inside the container (default behavior drops to 1000:1000)
• YTDL_LOG_LEVEL (or ytdl_log_level): backend log level, default info
• Valid log levels: error, warn, info, verbose, debug
• ytdl_ssl_cert_path / ytdl_ssl_key_path: enable HTTPS by pointing to mounted cert/key files
• ytdl_reverse_proxy_whitelist: comma-separated CIDR ranges allowed to connect (reverse proxy IPs, not client IPs)
• ytdl_multi_user_mode: set to 'true' to enable user-scoped media; required when OIDC is enabled
• OIDC required vars:
  • ytdl_oidc_enabled: set to 'true'
  • ytdl_oidc_issuer_url: your OIDC issuer URL
  • ytdl_oidc_client_id: OIDC client ID
  • ytdl_oidc_client_secret: OIDC client secret
  • ytdl_oidc_redirect_uri: callback URL (must end with /api/auth/oidc/callback)
• OIDC optional vars:
  • ytdl_oidc_scope (default openid profile email)
  • ytdl_oidc_allowed_groups (comma-separated allow-list)
  • ytdl_oidc_group_claim (default groups)
  • ytdl_oidc_admin_claim / ytdl_oidc_admin_value (defaults groups / admin)
  • ytdl_oidc_auto_register (default 'true')
  • ytdl_oidc_username_claim / ytdl_oidc_display_name_claim
• ytdl_oidc_migrate_videos: optional one-time startup migration target (UID or username) for unassigned media ownership

Example Docker Compose snippet:

environment:
    ytdl_mongodb_connection_string: 'mongodb://ytdl-mongo-db:27017'
    ytdl_use_local_db: 'false'
    write_ytdl_config: 'true'
    # UID: 1000
    # GID: 1000
    # YTDL_LOG_LEVEL: debug
    # ytdl_ssl_cert_path: /mnt/keys/fullchain.pem
    # ytdl_ssl_key_path: /mnt/keys/privkey.pem
    # ytdl_reverse_proxy_whitelist: 172.28.0.100/32
    # ytdl_multi_user_mode: 'true'
    # ytdl_oidc_enabled: 'true'
    # ytdl_oidc_issuer_url: 'https://idp.example.com/realms/ytdl'
    # ytdl_oidc_client_id: 'youtubedl-material'
    # ytdl_oidc_client_secret: 'replace-with-secret'
    # ytdl_oidc_redirect_uri: 'https://ytdl.example.com/api/auth/oidc/callback'
    # ytdl_oidc_scope: 'openid profile email'
    # ytdl_oidc_allowed_groups: 'media,admins'
    # ytdl_oidc_admin_claim: 'groups'
    # ytdl_oidc_admin_value: 'admin'
    # ytdl_oidc_auto_register: 'true'
    # ytdl_oidc_username_claim: 'preferred_username'
    # ytdl_oidc_display_name_claim: 'name'
    # ytdl_oidc_migrate_videos: 'admin'

If you prefer, you can also use Docker's user: "UID:GID" setting instead of UID/GID.

OIDC note: when ytdl_oidc_enabled is 'true', ytdl_multi_user_mode must also be 'true' or backend startup will fail.

MongoDB

For much better scaling with large datasets please run your YoutubeDL-Material instance with MongoDB backend rather than the json file-based default. It will fix a lot of performance problems (especially with datasets in the tens of thousands videos/audios)!

Tutorial.

API

API Docs

To get started, go to the settings menu and enable the public API from the Extra tab. You can generate an API key if one is missing.

Once you have enabled the API and have the key, you can start sending requests by adding the query param apiKey=API_KEY. Replace API_KEY with your actual API key, and you should be good to go! Nearly all of the backend should be at your disposal. View available endpoints in the link above.

Contributing

If you're interested in contributing, first: awesome! Second, please refer to the guidelines/setup information located in the Contributing wiki page, it's a helpful way to get you on your feet and coding away.

Pull requests are always appreciated! If you're a bit rusty with coding, that's no problem: we can always help you learn. And if that's too scary, that's OK too! You can create issues for features you'd like to see or bugs you encounter, it all helps this project grow.

If you're interested in translating the app into a new language, check out the Translate wiki page.

Authors

• Isaac Grynsztein (me!) - Initial work
• voc0der - Current maintenance

Official translators:

• Spanish - tzahi12345
• German - UnlimitedCookies
• Chinese - TyRoyal

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

Legal Disclaimer

This project is in no way affiliated with Google LLC, Alphabet Inc. or YouTube (or their subsidiaries) nor endorsed by them.

Acknowledgments

• youtube-dl
• AllTube (for the inspiration)