This command searches YouTube for "how to cook pizza" and downloads the first results. Search and Download All Results: youtube-dl "ytsearchall:keyword" Use code with caution.
If you have a text file of keywords (e.g., list.txt ), you can download the top result for each item: yt-dlp -a list.txt --default-search "ytsearch1" Use code with caution. youtube-dl download search results
To download search results, you use a specific prefix followed by the number of results and your search query. youtube-dl "ytsearch5:how to cook pizza" Use code with caution. This command searches YouTube for "how to cook
Downloading content directly from search queries is one of the most powerful features of command-line tools like and its more modern, actively maintained fork, yt-dlp . Instead of manually searching in a browser and copying individual URLs, you can instruct these tools to search a platform and download the top results automatically using specialized search prefixes. Core Commands for Downloading Search Results To download search results, you use a specific
If you want to see what results a search returns without downloading the actual video files, use the --get-title or --get-id flags: yt-dlp --get-title "ytsearch5:lofi hip hop" Use code with caution. Best Practices and Troubleshooting
You can target search results that meet certain criteria, such as those with closed captions: yt-dlp --playlist-items 1:1 "https://youtube.com" Use code with caution.