ACTube

Web GUI for yt-dlp with playlist & channel support. Allows you to download videos from YouTube and dozens of other sites.

ACTube is a fork of meTube project by alexta69.

Run using Docker

docker run -d --name ytptube -p 8081:8081 -v ./config:/config:rw -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads:rw ghcr.io/ArabCoders/ytptube

Run using docker-compose

version: "3"
services:
  ytptube:
    image: ghcr.io/ArabCoders/ytptube
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - /path/to/downloads:/downloads

Configuration via environment variables

Certain values can be set via environment variables, using the -e parameter on the docker command line, or the environment: section in docker-compose.

• UID: user under which ytptube will run. Defaults to 1000.
• GID: group under which ytptube will run. Defaults to 1000.
• UMASK: umask value used by ytptube. Defaults to 022.
• DEFAULT_THEME: default theme to use for the UI, can be set to light, dark or auto. Defaults to auto.
• DOWNLOAD_DIR: path to where the downloads will be saved. Defaults to /downloads in the docker image, and . otherwise.
• AUDIO_DOWNLOAD_DIR: path to where audio-only downloads will be saved, if you wish to separate them from the video downloads. Defaults to the value of DOWNLOAD_DIR.
• DOWNLOAD_DIRS_INDEXABLE: if true, the download dirs (DOWNLOAD_DIR and AUDIO_DOWNLOAD_DIR) are indexable on the web server. Defaults to false.
• CUSTOM_DIRS: whether to enable downloading videos into custom directories within the DOWNLOAD_DIR (or AUDIO_DOWNLOAD_DIR). When enabled, a drop-down appears next to the Add button to specify the download directory. Defaults to true.
• CREATE_CUSTOM_DIRS: whether to support automatically creating directories within the DOWNLOAD_DIR (or AUDIO_DOWNLOAD_DIR) if they do not exist. When enabled, the download directory selector becomes supports free-text input, and the specified directory will be created recursively. Defaults to true.
• STATE_DIR: path to where the queue persistence files will be saved. Defaults to /config in the docker image, and . otherwise.
• TEMP_DIR: path where intermediary download files will be saved. Defaults to /downloads in the docker image, and . otherwise. Set this to an SSD or RAM filesystem (e.g., tmpfs) for better performance Note: Using a RAM filesystem may prevent downloads from being resumed.
• DELETE_FILE_ON_TRASHCAN: if true, downloaded files are deleted on the server, when they are trashed from the "Completed" section of the UI. Defaults to false.
• URL_PREFIX: base path for the web server (for use when hosting behind a reverse proxy). Defaults to /.
• OUTPUT_TEMPLATE: the template for the filenames of the downloaded videos, formatted according to this spec. Defaults to %(title)s.%(ext)s.
• OUTPUT_TEMPLATE_CHAPTER: the template for the filenames of the downloaded videos, when split into chapters via postprocessors. Defaults to %(title)s - %(section_number)s %(section_title)s.%(ext)s.
• YTDL_OPTIONS: Additional options to pass to youtube-dl, in JSON format. See available options here. They roughly correspond to command-line options, though some do not have exact equivalents here, for example --recode-video has to be specified via postprocessors. Also note that dashes are replaced with underscores.
• YTDL_OPTIONS_FILE: A path to a JSON file that will be loaded and used for populating YTDL_OPTIONS above. Please note that if both YTDL_OPTIONS_FILE and YTDL_OPTIONS are specified, the options in YTDL_OPTIONS take precedence.

The following example value for YTDL_OPTIONS embeds English subtitles and chapter markers (for videos that have them), and also changes the permissions on the downloaded video and sets the file modification timestamp to the date of when it was downloaded:

    environment:
      - 'YTDL_OPTIONS={"writesubtitles":true,"subtitleslangs":["en","-live_chat"],"updatetime":false,"postprocessors":[{"key":"Exec","exec_cmd":"chmod 0664","when":"after_move"},{"key":"FFmpegEmbedSubtitle","already_have_subtitle":false},{"key":"FFmpegMetadata","add_chapters":true}]}'

The following example value for OUTPUT_TEMPLATE sets:

• playlist name and author, if present
• playlist number and count, if present (zero-padded, if needed)
• video author, title and release date in YYYY-MM-DD format, falling back to UNKNOWN_... if missing
• sanitizes everything for valid UNIX filename

    environment:
      - 'OUTPUT_TEMPLATE=%(playlist_title&Playlist |)S%(playlist_title|)S%(playlist_uploader& by |)S%(playlist_uploader|)S%(playlist_autonumber& - |)S%(playlist_autonumber|)S%(playlist_count& of |)S%(playlist_count|)S%(playlist_autonumber& - |)S%(uploader,creator|UNKNOWN_AUTHOR)S - %(title|UNKNOWN_TITLE)S - %(release_date>%Y-%m-%d,upload_date>%Y-%m-%d|UNKNOWN_DATE)S.%(ext)s'

Using browser cookies

In case you need to use your browser's cookies with ytptube, for example to download restricted or private videos:

• Add the following to your docker-compose.yml:

    volumes:
      - /path/to/cookies:/cookies
    environment:
      - YTDL_OPTIONS={"cookiefile":"/cookies/cookies.txt"}

• Install in your browser an extension to extract cookies:
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
• Extract the cookies you need with the extension and rename the file cookies.txt
• Drop the file in the folder you configured in the docker-compose.yml above
• Restart the container

Running behind a reverse proxy

It's advisable to run ytptube behind a reverse proxy, if authentication and/or HTTPS support are required.

When running behind a reverse proxy which remaps the URL (i.e. serves ytptube under a subdirectory and not under root), don't forget to set the URL_PREFIX environment variable to the correct value.

NGINX

location /ytptube/ {
        proxy_pass http://ytptube:8081;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
}

Note: the extra proxy_set_header directives are there to make WebSocket work.

Caddy

The following example Caddyfile gets a reverse proxy going behind caddy.

example.com {
  route /ytptube/* {
    uri strip_prefix ytptube
    reverse_proxy ytptube:8081
  }
}

Updating yt-dlp

The engine which powers the actual video downloads in ytptube is yt-dlp. Since video sites regularly change their layouts, frequent updates of yt-dlp are required to keep up.

There's an automatic nightly build of ytptube which looks for a new version of yt-dlp, and if one exists, the build pulls it and publishes an updated docker image. Therefore, in order to keep up with the changes, it's recommended that you update your ytptube container regularly with the latest image.

I recommend installing and setting up watchtower for this purpose.

Troubleshooting and submitting issues

Before asking a question or submitting an issue for ytptube, please remember that ytptube is only a UI for yt-dlp. Any issues you might be experiencing with authentication to video websites, postprocessing, permissions, other YTDL_OPTIONS configurations which seem not to work, or anything else that concerns the workings of the underlying yt-dlp library, need not be opened on the ytptube project. In order to debug and troubleshoot them, it's advised to try using the yt-dlp binary directly first, bypassing the UI, and once that is working, importing the options that worked for you into YTDL_OPTIONS.

In order to test with the yt-dlp command directly, you can either download it and run it locally, or for a better simulation of its actual conditions, you can run it within the ytptube container itself. Assuming your ytptube container is called ytptube, run the following on your Docker host to get a shell inside the container:

docker exec -ti ytptube sh
cd /downloads

Once there, you can use the yt-dlp command freely.

Building and running locally

Make sure you have node.js and Python 3.8 installed.

cd ytptube/ui
# install Angular and build the UI
npm install
node_modules/.bin/ng build
# install python dependencies
cd ..
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
# run
python app/main.py

A Docker image can be built locally (it will build the UI too):

docker build -t ytptube .