Universal Video Downloader — Apify Actor

Download videos, extract audio, and scrape metadata from 1800+ websites using yt-dlp.

Supported Sites

YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X, Reddit, Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch, Bluesky, Bilibili, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, BBC, CNN, and 1800+ more.

Features

• 9 download modes: best quality, 720p/480p/360p, MP3, FLAC, with subtitles, with metadata, or thumbnail-only
• Metadata scraping: title, uploader, views, likes, duration, description, tags, chapters, available formats, subtitles, and thumbnails
• File storage: downloaded files are saved to Apify Key-Value Store with public URLs
• Concurrency: process multiple URLs in parallel
• Retries: automatic retry on failure with configurable attempts
• Proxy support: use Apify proxy or custom proxies for geo-restricted content
• Cookie support: pass browser cookies as JSON for login-gated content (Instagram, Facebook, etc.)

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
urls	array	required	List of video URLs to process
mode	string	metadata	Download mode (see below)
subtitleLanguages	string	en	Comma-separated language codes
maxFileSize	integer	500	Skip files larger than this (MB), 0 = no limit
maxConcurrency	integer	3	Parallel downloads (1-10)
maxRetries	integer	2	Retry attempts per URL
cookies	string	—	Browser cookies as JSON array
proxyConfiguration	object	—	Apify or custom proxy config

Download Modes

Mode	Output
metadata	Metadata only, no file download
best_video	Best quality MP4
video_720p	720p MP4
video_480p	480p MP4
video_360p	360p MP4
audio_mp3	Audio extracted as MP3 (192kbps)
audio_flac	Audio extracted as FLAC (lossless)
video_with_subs	Best video with embedded subtitles
video_with_metadata	Best video with embedded metadata & thumbnail
thumbnail	Thumbnail image only

Example Input

{
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "https://www.tiktok.com/@username/video/1234567890",
        "https://x.com/user/status/1234567890"
    ],
    "mode": "audio_mp3",
    "maxConcurrency": 3,
    "maxRetries": 2,
    "maxFileSize": 200
}

Example Output

Each URL produces one item in the dataset:

{
    "input_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "mode": "audio_mp3",
    "status": "success",
    "error": null,
    "processing_time_seconds": 12.34,
    "scraped_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "attempt": 1,
    "metadata": {
        "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
        "uploader": "Rick Astley",
        "duration": 212,
        "duration_string": "3:32",
        "view_count": 1500000000,
        "like_count": 15000000,
        "upload_date": "20091025",
        "description": "...",
        "categories": ["Music"],
        "tags": ["rick astley", "never gonna give you up"],
        "extractor": "youtube",
        "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
        "format_count": 22,
        "formats": [...],
        "subtitles_available": {"en": ["vtt", "srv3"]},
        "chapters": []
    },
    "download": [
        {
            "filename": "dQw4w9WgXcQ.mp3",
            "kv_key": "Rick_Astley___Never_Gonna_Give_You_Up_dQw4w9WgXcQ.mp3",
            "public_url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/...",
            "size_bytes": 5120000,
            "size_mb": 4.88,
            "content_type": "audio/mpeg",
            "skipped": false
        }
    ]
}

Using Cookies for Login-Gated Content

For sites like Instagram or Facebook, export your cookies from a browser extension (e.g., "Get cookies.txt") and pass them as a JSON array:

{
    "urls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/ABC123/"],
    "mode": "best_video",
    "cookies": "[{\"domain\":\".instagram.com\",\"name\":\"sessionid\",\"value\":\"...\",\"path\":\"/\",\"secure\":true}]"
}

API Usage

Call this actor via the Apify API:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("YOUR_ACTOR_ID").call(run_input={
    "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
    "mode": "audio_mp3",
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["metadata"]["title"])
    if item.get("download"):
        print(item["download"][0]["public_url"])

Notes

• Downloaded files are stored in the actor's default Key-Value Store and accessible via public URLs
• The actor requires ffmpeg (included in the Docker image) for audio extraction and format merging
• Not all 1800+ sites are guaranteed to work — websites change frequently
• Respect copyright laws and terms of service when downloading content