ytmusic.nvim

A simple Neovim plugin to play YouTube Music directly from your editor.

Requirements

1. mpv: Must be in your $PATH.
2. yt-dlp: CRITICAL - Must be the LATEST version.
   • YouTube frequently changes their backend. The version in apt or brew is often too old.

Installation

Using lazy.nvim

{
  "shardulvs/ytmusic.nvim",
}

Cookies (Fix for "Sign in" errors)

If you get errors like "Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot" or "403 Forbidden":

1. Export your cookies from your browser (Netscape format).
   • Use a browser extension like "Get cookies.txt LOCALLY".
2. Set the environment variable in your shell (.bashrc / .zshrc):

   export YOUTUBE_COOKIES_FILE="/path/to/your/cookies.txt"

Usage

1. Create a file with .ytmusic extension (e.g., playlist.ytmusic).
2. Paste YouTube Music URLs:

   https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d9S4diaWjos
   

3. Open the file in Neovim. Titles will be fetched automatically.
4. Controls:
   • <Enter>: Play / Stop.
   • :YtStop: Emergency stop all playback.
   • :FetchTitles: Manually re-scan the file for new links and fetch their titles.
   • Closing Buffer: Stops playback immediately.

Importing Playlists

To easily get all links from a YouTube Music playlist:

1. Open the playlist in your browser.
2. Scroll down to load all songs.
3. Open Developer Tools (F12) -> Console.
4. Paste this snippet to copy all links:

console.log([...new Set(Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("ytmusic-responsive-list-item-renderer a[href*='watch?v=']")).map(a=>"https://music.youtube.com/watch?v="+a.href.split("v=")[1].split("&")[0]))].join("\n"))

Disclaimer

If this plugin breaks in the future, feel free to blame YouTube. They love changing their backend APIs just to mess with us. If that happens, update yt-dlp and pray.

License

MIT