MeTube
Web GUI for youtube-dl (using the yt-dlp fork) with playlist support. Allows you to download videos from YouTube and dozens of other sites (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/supportedsites.md).
Run using Docker
docker run -d -p 8081:8081 -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads alexta69/metube
Run using docker-compose
version: "3"
services:
metube:
image: alexta69/metube
container_name: metube
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "8081:8081"
volumes:
- /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 MeTube will run. Defaults to
1000. - GID: group under which MeTube will run. Defaults to
1000. - UMASK: umask value used by MeTube. Defaults to
022. - DOWNLOAD_DIR: path to where the downloads will be saved. Defaults to
/downloadsin 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. - STATE_DIR: path to where the queue persistence files will be saved. Defaults to
/downloads/.metubein the docker image, and.otherwise. - 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-videohas to be specified viapostprocessors. Also note that dashes are replaced with underscores.
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:
{"writesubtitles": true, "subtitleslangs": ["en", "-live_chat"], "postprocessors": [{"key": "Exec", "exec_cmd": "chmod 0664", "when": "after_move"}, {"key": "FFmpegEmbedSubtitle", "already_have_subtitle": false}, {"key": "FFmpegMetadata", "add_chapters": true}]}
Using browser cookies
In case you need to use your browser's cookies with MeTube, 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:
- 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
Browser extensions
Browser extensions allow right-clicking videos and sending them directly to MeTube. Please note that if you're on an HTTPS page, your MeTube instance must be behind an HTTPS reverse proxy (see below) for the extensions to work.
Chrome: contributed by Rpsl. You can install it from Google Chrome Webstore or use developer mode and install from sources.
Firefox: contributed by nanocortex. You can install it from Firefox Addons or get sources from here.
Bookmarklet
kushfest has created a Chrome bookmarklet for sending the currently open webpage to MeTube. Please note that if you're on an HTTPS page, your MeTube instance must be behind an HTTPS reverse proxy (see below) for the bookmarklet to work.
GitHub doesn't allow embedding JavaScript as a link, so the bookmarklet has to be created manually by copying the following code to a new bookmark you create on your bookmarks bar. Change the hostname in the URL below to point to your MeTube instance.
javascript:!function(){xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function(){if(xhr.status==200){alert("Sent to metube!")}else{alert("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}}();
shoonya75 has contributed a Firefox version:
javascript:(function(){xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function(){if(xhr.status==200){alert("Sent to metube!")}else{alert("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}})();
The above bookmarklets use alert() as a success/failure notification. The following will show a toast message instead:
Chrome:
javascript:!function(){function notify(msg) {var sc = document.scrollingElement.scrollTop; var text = document.createElement('span');text.innerHTML=msg;var ts = text.style;ts.all = 'revert';ts.color = '#000';ts.fontFamily = 'Verdana, sans-serif';ts.fontSize = '15px';ts.backgroundColor = 'white';ts.padding = '15px';ts.border = '1px solid gainsboro';ts.boxShadow = '3px 3px 10px';ts.zIndex = '100';document.body.appendChild(text);ts.position = 'absolute'; ts.top = 50 + sc + 'px'; ts.left = (window.innerWidth / 2)-(text.offsetWidth / 2) + 'px'; setTimeout(function () { text.style.visibility = "hidden"; }, 1500);}xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function() { if(xhr.status==200){notify("Sent to metube!")}else {notify("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}}();
Firefox:
javascript:(function(){function notify(msg) {var sc = document.scrollingElement.scrollTop; var text = document.createElement('span');text.innerHTML=msg;var ts = text.style;ts.all = 'revert';ts.color = '#000';ts.fontFamily = 'Verdana, sans-serif';ts.fontSize = '15px';ts.backgroundColor = 'white';ts.padding = '15px';ts.border = '1px solid gainsboro';ts.boxShadow = '3px 3px 10px';ts.zIndex = '100';document.body.appendChild(text);ts.position = 'absolute'; ts.top = 50 + sc + 'px'; ts.left = (window.innerWidth / 2)-(text.offsetWidth / 2) + 'px'; setTimeout(function () { text.style.visibility = "hidden"; }, 1500);}xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();xhr.open("POST","https://metube.domain.com/add");xhr.send(JSON.stringify({"url":document.location.href,"quality":"best"}));xhr.onload=function() { if(xhr.status==200){notify("Sent to metube!")}else {notify("Send to metube failed. Check the javascript console for clues.")}}})();
Running behind a reverse proxy
It's advisable to run MeTube 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 MeTube under a subdirectory and not under root), don't forget to set the URL_PREFIX environment variable to the correct value.
If you're using the linuxserver/swag image for your reverse proxying needs (which I can heartily recommend), it already includes ready snippets for proxying MeTube both in subfolder and subdomain modes under the nginx/proxy-confs directory in the configuration volume. It also includes Authelia which can be used for authentication.
NGINX
location /metube/ {
proxy_pass http://metube: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.
Apache
Contributed by PIE-yt. Source here.
# For putting in your Apache sites site.conf
# Serves MeTube under a /metube/ subdir (http://yourdomain.com/metube/)
<Location /metube/>
ProxyPass http://localhost:8081/ retry=0 timeout=30
ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:8081/
Location>
<Location /metube/socket.io>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} transport=websocket [NC]
RewriteRule /(.*) ws://localhost:8081/socket.io/$1 [P,L]
ProxyPass http://localhost:8081/socket.io retry=0 timeout=30
ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:8081/socket.io
Location>
Caddy
The following example Caddyfile gets a reverse proxy going behind caddy.
example.com {
route /metube/* {
uri strip_prefix metube
reverse_proxy metube:8081
}
}
Updating yt-dlp
The engine which powers the actual video downloads in MeTube 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 MeTube 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 MeTube container regularly with the latest image.
I recommend installing and setting up watchtower for this purpose.
Build and run locally
Make sure you have node.js and Python 3.8 installed.
cd metube/ui
# install Angular and build the UI
npm install
node_modules/.bin/ng build
# install python dependencies
cd ..
pip3 install pipenv
pipenv install
# run
pipenv run python3 app/main.py
A Docker image can be built locally (it will build the UI too):
docker build -t metube .
Development notes
- The above works on Windows and macOS as well as Linux.
- If you're running the server in VSCode, your downloads will go to your user's Downloads folder (this is configured via the environment in .vscode/launch.json).
![Unable to download webpage: <urlopen error [Errno 99] Address not available](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/59785107?v=4)
![[Feature request] Add multiple links](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/106586114?v=4)
![[Feature request] Upload cookie.txt](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/264911?v=4)
32 Aug 12, 2023
3 May 18, 2022
4 May 3, 2022
14 Jan 3, 2023
2 Jan 31, 2022
158 Dec 27, 2022
65 Nov 2, 2022
109 Dec 19, 2022
6 Aug 20, 2022
34 Dec 27, 2022
1 Jan 2, 2022
66 Dec 24, 2022
2.3k Dec 31, 2022
158 Dec 23, 2022
20 Nov 13, 2022
516 Nov 26, 2022
15 Oct 31, 2022
11 Jan 3, 2023
124 Jan 6, 2023