YouTube Video Downloader Scraper

Overview

Extracts direct download URLs and core metadata from YouTube videos in bulk — useful for content archiving, offline distribution, video processing pipelines, and research workflows.

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Input Format

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/..."
  ]
}

• urls: Array of YouTube video URLs (youtube.com/watch?v=...).

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Output Format

Field	Type	Description
video_id	String	Unique YouTube identifier from the URL
title	String	Full video title as shown on YouTube
length_seconds	Integer	Total duration in seconds
download_urls	Array	Direct file URLs across all available formats and qualities

Each entry in download_urls includes:

Sub-field	Description
url	Direct playback/download link
mime_type	File format and codec (e.g., video/mp4, audio/webm)
quality_label	Human-readable quality (e.g., 1080p, 720p, 480p)
width / height	Resolution in pixels
fps	Frames per second
bitrate / average_bitrate	Bitrate in bps
content_length	File size in bytes

Example Output (abbreviated)

{
  "video_id": "DEofhN7oun0",
  "title": "Example Video Title",
  "length_seconds": "373",
  "download_urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://rr2---sn-....googlevideo.com/videoplayback?...",
      "mime_type": "video/mp4; codecs=\"avc1.640028\"",
      "quality_label": "1080p",
      "width": 1920,
      "height": 1080,
      "fps": 30,
      "bitrate": 4345033,
      "content_length": "119275508"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://rr2---sn-....googlevideo.com/videoplayback?...",
      "mime_type": "audio/mp4; codecs=\"mp4a.40.2\"",
      "quality_label": "",
      "width": 0,
      "height": 0,
      "fps": 0,
      "bitrate": 130855,
      "content_length": "6040133"
    }
  ]
}

⚠️ Download URLs are time-limited. They expire within minutes to hours. Act on them immediately after extraction.

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Usage

1. Collect URLs — Use clean watch?v=VIDEO_ID format when possible. Avoid playlist URLs with extra parameters.
2. Set ignore_url_failures: true — Prevents one bad URL from halting a batch job.
3. Run and act promptly — Initiate downloads or pass URLs to your pipeline as soon as results return.
4. Use video_id as your primary key — Stable across records; can reconstruct the source URL anytime.
5. Use length_seconds for size estimation — Helps forecast storage requirements before downloading.

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Common Issues

Problem	Solution
URL returns 403/410 error	Token expired — re-run the scraper for fresh links
Video skipped silently	Check run log; verify video is public and accessible on YouTube
Wrong video returned	Use clean watch?v= URLs; avoid shortened or playlist URLs

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Use Cases

• Archiving: Build offline libraries of owned or licensed video content
• Offline education: Distribute lecture/tutorial videos in low-connectivity environments
• Processing pipelines: Feed URLs into transcoding, captioning, or computer vision systems
• Research: Collect raw video files for academic datasets (subject to licensing and ethics review)
• Content ops: Automate video asset retrieval for internal editing or compliance workflows