Download Youtube Video in Golang

March 21, 2026 · View on GitHub

This package is a Youtube video download package, for more detail refer https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl for more download options.

This tool is meant to be used to download CC0 licenced content, we do not support nor recommend using it for illegal activities.

Overview

Install
Usage
Example: Download video from [dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated]

Installation

Run Manually

git clone https://github.com/kkdai/youtube.git && cd youtube
go run ./cmd/youtubedr

Install via Go

Please ensure you have installed Go 1.26 or later.

go install github.com/kkdai/youtube/v2/cmd/youtubedr@latest

Mac

brew install youtubedr

in Termux

pkg install youtubedr

You can also find this package in

archlinux (thanks to cjsthompson)
Termux package (thanks to kcubeterm)
Homebrew (thanks to kkc)

Usage

Use the binary directly

It's really simple to use, just get the video id from youtube url - ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM, the video id is rFejpH_tAHM

youtubedr download rFejpH_tAHM
youtubedr download https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM

Use this package in your golang program

Please check out the example_test.go for example code.

Example:

Get information of dotGo-2015-rob-pike video for downloading

Download video from dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated

youtubedr info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM

Title: dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated
Author: dotconferences
-----available streams-----
itag:  18 , quality: medium , type: video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2"
itag:  22 , quality:  hd720 , type: video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2"
itag: 137 , quality: hd1080 , type: video/mp4; codecs="avc1.640028"
itag: 248 , quality: hd1080 , type: video/webm; codecs="vp9"
........

Download dotGo-2015-rob-pike-video

Download video from dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated
```
youtubedr download https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM
```
Download video to specific folder and name

Download video from dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated to current directory and name the file to simplicity-is-complicated.mp4
```
youtubedr download -d ./ -o simplicity-is-complicated.mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM
```

Download video with specific quality

Download video from dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated with specific quality

youtubedr download -q medium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM

Special case by quality hd1080:

Installation of ffmpeg is necessary for hd1080

ffmpeg   //check ffmpeg is installed, if not please download ffmpeg and set to your PATH.
youtubedr download -q hd1080 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM

Download video with specific itag

Download video from dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated
```
youtubedr download -q 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM
```

How it works

Parse the video ID you input in URL
- ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFejpH_tAHM, the video id is rFejpH_tAHM
Get video information via video id.
- Use URL: http://youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=
Parse and decode video information.
- Download URL in "url="
- title in "title="
Download video from URL
- Need the string combination of "url"