Submitted 3 weeks ago by muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works to selfhosted@lemmy.world
I had Pinchflat set up on my server and never got around to putting it back in after I nuked it. I remember organizing backed up videos in jellyfin was a mess I never quite got working as well as I’d like.
I see there’s a couple alternatives mentioned on the Pinchflat GitHub. What is everybody else using to accomplish this?
Most kids today don’t know how to use a computer, but old farts like me use yt-dlp.
yt-dlp
As others have already said, yt-dlp is absolutely the gold standard. It even works in Termux. As for a dedicated Android app, there are apps like Seal which are effectively just wrappers for yt-dlp. Then the open source YouTube clients like Tubular, which are primarily for browsing/watching videos, have a download button on every video.
Seal is my favorite app to demonstrate the power of installing apps outside of Google Play
yt-dlp is great for cli, and if you want a web gui, you can run metube in docker
I don’t think docker is a good solution for people who need a gui
There is portainer. CLI until you install portainer then everything is GUI based.
If I wanted a web UI I would just make a script that ran yt-dlp $1 and then use php shell_exec(script URL);
On Android Newpipe has the best UI in my opinion.
Parabolic
I use the Parabolic flatpak and it works well (apart from when the mouse gets caught for a few days in the cat and mouse game that is YouTube downloading).
I use newpipe on phone but metube isn’t too hard to install with docker
I use GUI wrappers for yt-dlp - Parabolic on Fedora GNOME and Seal on Android
I use jdownloader2.
Paste a YouTube link and it will download the thumbnail, the video, a separate audio, and the transcript.
It will also download from a lot of video hosting sites if you know what I mean 😜
Stacher already dines the one off things like that for me. I’m more looking at automated runs.
I mean you can use Peertube for that. I use it that way.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web |
| Plex | Brand of media server package |
| SSH | Secure Shell for remote terminal access |
[Thread #93 for this comm, first seen 14th Feb 2026, 14:01] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Good bot.
Metube is a nice UI with yt-dlp as a background that is updated regularly.
On Android I use Seal. Aside from an occasional hiccup it’s awesome and does a phenomenal job 99% of the time. If I ever can’t get one item to work and there’s no alternative, I use one of the ones on my Linux machine. I’ll post the name when I’m home and can check.
I’ve downloaded many videos with PipePipe on my Android.
Just use Jdownloader to download whatever you want from the internet.
That’s what I use a well, Specifically jdownloader2. I have run into a few YouTube videos it can’t get. Typically they are music.
TubeArchivist rules
I still use Pinchflat. It doesn’t exactly do as I like, but I’m mostly just downloading two channels, so it’s okay enough for me.
I’m not really looking to do this with apps since google is pretty close to the regime so anything good could be taken down at any time. I want something to copies it down and I pull in with my existing stack like Pinchflat did, but cleaner.
Part of this is I’m still on apple. I’m looking at fleeing, but certainly not to google. Until I finally get off my ass and get a Linux phone, let’s just assume this has to work from a webUI
I have been using a docker container - ytdl-sub, which uses yt-dlp to download YouTube videos with metadata for jellyfin
thanks for mentioning ytdl-sub!
can it selectively download videos or does it auto download all videos of a subscription?
You’re painting yourself into a corner by avoiding degoogled Android operating systems. I guess my suggestion for you would probably have to be to install yt-dlp on your server, and then use an SSH app when you need to download a video. Maybe someone more familiar with Apple can offer a better suggestion.
I was looking at a pixel running graphene this last upgrade cycle but google taking a swing a third party roms chased me back to apple for now.
NewPipe
I use metube and Pinchflat.
Metube is great for one-off video downloads and works for many sites including social media. This comes in handy a lot when I want to send a short reel to friends without linking to Facebook, etc.
Pinchflat automatically downloads my favorites playlists and a couple other channels that I follow. These videos go into specific folders that are linked to Plex libraries.
I use metube on the server and made mobile integration with Android using “HTTP Shortcuts” to easily submit links to metube via its API. Just a simple Android share click and it’s done.
I use Tubular
Yt.dlp. I wrote a small pyrhon script to give me a gui. Works really well.
yt-dlp, but most of the time you’ll use some form of front end. All the “youtube downloaders”, even the shady websites, are using yt-dlp. For selfhosted purposes, I like MeTube for individual downloads and Tubesync for keeping up with channels.
cobalt.tools is good idk if it works still
Is there anything that works for Vimeo?
On Android, I use ytdlnis, which is a wrapper around yt-dlp. You can “share” a video from to YouTube app to ytdlnis and it’ll add it to the download queue.
I always recommend Seal just because I can never remember the name of this app. Has anyone made use of both and has an opinion on which is better?
LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Yt-dlp is what I see mostly
in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Make sure you update often though. Youtube/Google/Alphabet are playing whackamole.
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
SatyrSack@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
Simply running
pip install yt-dlpdoesn’t update though, right? You need to add an upgrade flag, so either:pip install yt-dlp --upgradepip install yt-dlp -USexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
I just did
uv tool install yt-dlp[default] --with mutagen. Updates are handled automatically.FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I put it in a container that has a build process every week.
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yt-dlp is the way. J-Downloader is okay too if you need a good interface but dlp is just too damn powerful to not use
ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yup, don’t need anything else.