A sleek, hassle-free YouTube downloader built as a wrapper around yt-dlp, with a clean, interactive inline selector and a Deno-inspired loading bar. Designed for anyone who wants a straightforward way to download audio/video from YouTube without fussing with complex commands.

Note: only works for YouTube and YouTube Music (for now at least)

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Usage

• ✅ Audio & Video downloads

  • -a / --audio → download audio only (mp3)
  • Video downloads default to mp4

• ✅ Interactive quality selection

  • -q / --quality → pick video or audio quality via an inline arrow-menu

• ✅ Highest quality mode

  • -H / --high → automatically grab the best available video

• ✅ Custom output folder

  • -o / --output <directory> → choose where to save downloads (default: ~/Videos/Youtube)

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Features

• ✅ Playlist support

  • Prompts if the URL contains a playlist and allows downloading all videos

• ✅ Progress bar inspired by Deno

  • Shows percentage, downloaded size, total size, speed, ETA

• ✅ Handles YouTube Music URLs

  • Normalizes music URLs to regular YouTube format

• ✅ Automatic MP3 conversion (for audio mode)

  • Supports bitrate selection: 320, 256, 192, 128 kbps, or Best

• ✅ Minimal and clean console output

  • Color-coded status messages for errors, selections, and progress

• ✅ Interrupt handling

  • Ctrl+C gracefully cancels downloads at any stage

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Installation

Dependencies

Make sure you have these installed:

• Python 3.11+
• yt-dlp (pip install yt-dlp)
• ffmpeg (for audio extraction/conversion)
• A NerdFont (for glyphs to appear correctly)

From GitHub (Recommended)

Applies to any non-Arch based distros & MacOS

git clone https://github.com/TheAnonymousCrusher/yt-nerddl.git
cd yt-nerddl
chmod +x yt-nerddl.py
sudo mv yt-nerddl.py /usr/local/bin/yt-nerddl

From AUR (older version, not maintained)

yay -S yt-nerddl # or whatever AUR helper you use (e.g paru, pikaur)

After installation, you can run it simply with:

yt-nerddl [options] <youtube-url> 

Windows

‼️ Interactive quality selector (-q) is currently not supported on Windows

• Make sure you have Python 3.11+ and FFmpeg installed.
• Clone/download the repo:

git clone https://github.com/TheAnonymousCrusher/yt-nerddl.git
cd yt-nerddl
# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

• Run the script when you need to use it:

python yt-nerddl.py [options] <url>

Note: For the icons to look right, make sure your Windows Terminal is set to use a Nerd Font.

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Basic Usage Guide

yt-nerddl [options] <url>

Options:

Option	Description
-a, --audio	Download audio only (mp3)
-H, --high	Fetch highest available quality
-o, --output <dir>	Specify output directory (default: ~/Videos/Youtube)
-q, --quality	Interactive quality selector

Example:

• Download audio only at best quality:

yt-nerddl -a -q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxx

• Download a playlist in the highest available quality:

yt-nerddl -H https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=xxxx

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Philosophy

yt-nerddl is meant to be a nice-looking, hassle-free YouTube downloader. The idea is to make downloading content intuitive, quick, and visually clear without writing complex yt-dlp commands. The progress bar and inline selector are inspired by Deno’s clean aesthetic.

It’s essentially yt-dlp, but with a friendly, interactive wrapper that feels modern, fast, and minimal.

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Contributions

• Contributions welcome!
• Open a PR or submit issues for bugs/features.
• Keep the progress bar clean, colors readable, and UX smooth.