YT-DLP Studio

Modern Windows GUI for yt-dlp with playlists, subtitles, presets, and FFmpeg processing.

Highlights

• Download individual videos, playlists, or channels as MP4, original media, or MP3.
• Queue up to four concurrent tasks with live progress, cancellation, retry, and history.
• Download, convert, embed, or burn subtitles with configurable styling.
• Process media with FFmpeg: trim, split, resize, crop, rotate, normalize audio, and more.
• Save reusable presets and use browser cookies locally for content that requires sign-in.
• Run as a Windows installer, a portable ZIP, or directly from Python source.

Quick Start

Windows installer

1. Open the latest release.
2. Download and run YT-DLP-Studio-*-Setup.exe.
3. Add FFmpeg in Settings if it is not already available on PATH.

Portable ZIP

Download YT-DLP-Studio-*-portable.zip, extract the entire archive, and run YT-DLP Studio.exe. Keep the executable beside its _internal directory.

From source

git clone https://github.com/phunguyen1006/yt-dlp-studio.git
cd yt-dlp-studio
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\install_dependencies.ps1
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\run_dev.ps1

Python 3.11+ is required. FFmpeg and FFprobe are required for merging, conversion, subtitles, and media processing.

Architecture

flowchart LR
    GUI["GUI"] --> Workers["Workers"] --> Services["Services"]
    Services --> YTDLP["yt-dlp"]
    Services --> FFmpeg["FFmpeg / FFprobe"]

Loading

The GUI only presents state. Background workers keep it responsive, while services own downloads, queues, history, presets, subtitles, and FFmpeg operations. See Architecture for the full boundaries and local-storage model.

Documentation

• User Guide — downloads, playlists, subtitles, cookies, and troubleshooting.
• Development — environment setup, tests, syntax checks, and Windows builds.
• Architecture — layers, threading, services, and local persistence.
• Release Guide — installer, portable ZIP, verification, and checksums.
• Contributing and Changelog.

Privacy and Security

YT-DLP Studio has no telemetry or private application server. Settings, presets, history, logs, and browser-cookie references remain on the local machine and are excluded from Git. Cookie contents, tokens, and raw yt-dlp error messages are not logged. See Security Policy.

Limitations

• Active tasks cannot be paused; cancel and retry instead.
• Playlist entries use ranges or index lists rather than individual checkboxes.
• Network cancellation may wait until the current request times out.
• Portable builds update yt-dlp by installing a newer application release.

SmartScreen and SHA-256

Current binaries are not Authenticode-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may show Unknown publisher. Download SHA256SUMS.txt from the same release and verify a file before running it:

Get-FileHash .\YT-DLP-Studio-1.0.0-Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256

The displayed hash must match the corresponding line in SHA256SUMS.txt.

License and Disclaimer

Released under the MIT License. Users are responsible for respecting platform terms, privacy requirements, and copyright law when downloading or processing media.