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Environment variables

Certain configuration values can be set via environment variables, using the -e parameter on the docker command line, or the environment: section in compose.yaml file.

Environment Variable Description Default
TZ The timezone to use for the application (not_set)
YTP_OUTPUT_TEMPLATE The template for the filenames of the downloaded videos %(title)s.%(ext)s
YTP_DEFAULT_PRESET The default preset to use for the download default
YTP_INSTANCE_TITLE The title of the instance (not_set)
YTP_FILE_LOGGING Whether to log to file false
YTP_DOWNLOAD_PATH Path to where the downloads will be saved /downloads
YTP_MAX_WORKERS The maximum number of workers to use for downloading 20
YTP_MAX_WORKERS_PER_EXTRACTOR The maximum number of concurrent downloads per extractor 2
YTP_AUTH_USERNAME Username for basic authentication (not_set)
YTP_AUTH_PASSWORD Password for basic authentication (not_set)
YTP_CONSOLE_ENABLED Whether to enable the console false
YTP_REMOVE_FILES Remove the actual file when clicking the remove button false
YTP_CONFIG_PATH Path to where the config files will be stored. /config
YTP_TEMP_PATH Path to where tmp files are stored. /tmp
YTP_TEMP_KEEP Whether to keep the Individual video temp directory or remove it false
YTP_HOST Which IP address to bind to 0.0.0.0
YTP_PORT Which port to bind to 8081
YTP_LOG_LEVEL Log level info
YTP_STREAMER_VCODEC The video encoding codec, default to GPU and fallback to software ""
YTP_STREAMER_ACODEC The audio codec to use for in-browser streaming aac
YTP_VAAPI_DEVICE The VAAPI device to use for hardware acceleration. /dev/dri/renderD128
YTP_ACCESS_LOG Whether to log access to the web server true
YTP_DEBUG Whether to turn on debug mode false
YTP_DEBUGPY_PORT The port to use for the debugpy debugger 5678
YTP_EXTRACT_INFO_TIMEOUT The timeout for extracting video information 70
YTP_UI_UPDATE_TITLE Whether to update the title of the page with the current stats true
YTP_PIP_PACKAGES A space separated list of pip packages to install (not_set)
YTP_PIP_IGNORE_UPDATES Do not update the custom pip packages false
YTP_PICTURES_BACKENDS A comma separated list of pictures urls to use (not_set)
YTP_BROWSER_CONTROL_ENABLED Whether to enable the file browser actions false
YTP_YTDLP_AUTO_UPDATE Whether to enable the auto update for yt-dlp true
YTP_YTDLP_DEBUG Whether to turn debug logging for the internal yt-dlp package false
YTP_YTDLP_VERSION The version of yt-dlp to use. Defaults to latest version (not_set)
YTP_FLARESOLVERR_URL FlareSolverr endpoint URL. (not_set)
YTP_FLARESOLVERR_MAX_TIMEOUT Max FlareSolverr challenge timeout in seconds 120
YTP_FLARESOLVERR_CLIENT_TIMEOUT HTTP client timeout (seconds) when calling FlareSolverr 120
YTP_FLARESOLVERR_CACHE_TTL The cache TTL (in seconds) for FlareSolverr solutions 600
YTP_BASE_PATH Set this if you are serving YTPTube from sub-folder /
YTP_PREVENT_LIVE_PREMIERE Prevents the initial youtube premiere stream from being downloaded false
YTP_LIVE_PREMIERE_BUFFER buffer time in minutes to add to video duration 5
YTP_TASKS_HANDLER_TIMER The cron expression for the tasks handler timer 15 */1 * * *
YTP_TEMP_DISABLED Disable temp files handling. false
YTP_DOWNLOAD_PATH_DEPTH How many subdirectories to show in auto complete. 1
YTP_ALLOW_INTERNAL_URLS Allow requests to internal URLs false
YTP_SIMPLE_MODE Switch default interface to Simple mode. false
YTP_STATIC_UI_PATH Path to custom static UI files. (not_set)
YTP_AUTO_CLEAR_HISTORY_DAYS Number of days after which completed download history is cleared. 0
YTP_DEFAULT_PAGINATION The default number of items per page for history. 50
YTP_TASK_HANDLER_RANDOM_DELAY The maximum random delay in seconds before starting a task handler. 60
YTP_IGNORE_ARCHIVED_ITEMS Don't report archived items in the download history. false
YTP_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES Whether to check for application updates. true
YTP_EXTRACT_INFO_CONCURRENCY The number of concurrent extract info operations. 4

Note

To raise the maximum workers for specific extractor, you need to add a ENV variable that follows the pattern YTP_MAX_WORKERS_FOR_<EXTRACTOR_NAME>. The extractor name must be in uppercase, to know the extractor name, check the log for the specific extractor used for the download. The limit should not exceed the YTP_MAX_WORKERS value as it will be ignored.

Important

The env variable YTP_SIMPLE_MODE only control what being displayed for first time visitor, the users can still switch between the two modes via the WebUI settings page.

Notes about YTP_AUTO_CLEAR_HISTORY_DAYS

  • 0 days means no automatic clearing of the download history. lowest value that will trigger the clearing is 1 day.
  • This setting will NOT delete the downloaded files, it will only clear the history from the database.

Browser extensions & bookmarklets

Simple bookmarklet

javascript:(() => { const url = "https://ytp.example.org"; const preset = "default"; const mUrl = new URL(url);mUrl.pathname="/api/history/add";mUrl.searchParams.set("url",document.location.href);mUrl.searchParams.set("preset",preset);fetch(mUrl,{method: "GET"}).then(j => j.json()).then(json =>alert(json.message)).catch(err =>alert(err)); })()

Change the the variable url and preset variables to match your YTPTube instance and preset name.

Note

The bookmarklet should be served from https page, otherwise, some browsers will block the request. for mixed content.

Browser stores

iOS Shortcuts

You can download Add To YTPTube shortcut and use it to send links to your YTPTube instance. You have to edit the shortcut and replace the following:

  • https://ytp.example.org with your YTPTube instance.
  • username:password replace this with your own username & password or leave it empty if you don't have authentication enabled.

This shortcut is powerful, as it's allow you to select your preset on the fly pulled directly from your instance. Combined with the new and powerful presets system, you could add presets for specific websites that need cookies, and use that preset to download directly from your iOS device.

Advanced iOS Shortcut

This shortcut YTPTube To Media is more advanced, as it's parses the yt-dlp output and attempt to download the media directly to your iOS device. It doesn't always work, but it's a good starting point for those who want to download media directly to their iOS device. We provide no support for this use case other than the shortcut itself. this shortcut missing support for parsing the http_headers, it's only parse the cookies.

Authentication

To enable basic authentication, set the YTP_AUTH_USERNAME and YTP_AUTH_PASSWORD environment variables. And restart the container. This will prompt the user to enter the username and password before accessing the web interface/API. As this is a simple basic authentication, if your browser doesn't show the prompt, you can use the following URL

http://username:password@your_ytptube_url:port

I cant download anything

If you are receiving errors like:

  • "OSError: [Errno 5] I/O error"
  • "OSError: [Errno 18] Cross-device link: '/tmp/random_id/name.webm' -> '/downloads/name.webm'
  • "Operation not permitted: '/downloads/name.webm'

This indicates an error with your mounts and how they interact with the container. So, the basic solution is to do the following:

services:
  ytptube:
    user: "${UID:-1000}:${UID:-1000}" # change this to your user id and group id, for example: "1000:1000"
    image: ghcr.io/arabcoders/ytptube:latest
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - YTP_TEMP_PATH=/downloads/tmp
      - YTP_DOWNLOAD_PATH=/downloads/files
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config:rw
      - ./downloads:/downloads:rw

Then run the following command to create the necessary directories and start the container:

mkdir -p ./config && mkdir -p ./downloads/{tmp,files} && docker compose -f compose.yaml up -d

Reference: Issue #363

I want to use link with playlist but only download the video not all the videos in the playlist?

Simply create a preset, and in the Command options for yt-dlp field set --no-playlist. Then select the preset whenever the link includes a playlist id.

Note

You can also do the same via advanced options Command options for yt-dlp field, but presets are more convenient.

Install specific yt-dlp version?

You can force specific version of yt-dlp by setting the YTP_YTDLP_VERSION environment variable for example

YTP_YTDLP_VERSION=2025.07.21 or master or nightly

Then restart the container to apply the changes.

How can I monitor sites without RSS feeds?

YTPTube includes a generic task handler that turns JSON definitions into site-specific scrapers. You can use it to watch pages that do not expose RSS or public APIs and automatically enqueue new links into the download queue.

  1. Create definition via the WebUI > tasks > Definitions.
  2. Create task that reference same url click on inspect to see the results. Make sure it uses a preset that enables a download archive (--download-archive).
  3. When the task handler run, the handler scans the definitions, picks the first definition whose match rule covers the task URL, fetches the page, extracts items, and queues the unseen ones.

Definition schema

Each definition must contain a single JSON object with the following keys:

{
  "name": "example",                  // Friendly identifier shown in logs
  "match_url": [
    "https://example.com/articles/*", // Glob strings
    "https://example.com/post/[0-9]+" // Regex strings
  ],
  "engine": {                         // Optional, defaults to HTTPX
    "type": "httpx",                  // "httpx" (default) or "selenium"
    "options": {
      "url": "http://selenium:4444/wd/hub", // Selenium-only: remote hub URL
      "arguments": ["--headless", "--disable-gpu"],
      "wait_for": { "type": "css", "expression": ".article" },
      "wait_timeout": 15,
      "page_load_timeout": 60
    }
  },
  "request": {                      // Optional HTTP settings
    "method": "GET",                // GET or POST
    "url": "https://example.com/articles/latest", // Override the task URL if needed
    "headers": { "User-Agent": "MyAgent/1.0" },
    "params": { "page": 1 },
    "data": null,
    "json_data": null,
    "timeout": 30
  },
  "response": {                      // Optional: how to interpret the body
    "type": "html"                   // "html" (default) or "json"
  },
  "parse": {
    "items": {                        // Optional container for per-item extraction
      "selector": ".columns .card",   // Defaults to CSS; set "type": "xpath" to use XPath
      "fields": {
        "link": {                     // Required inside fields: the per-item URL
          "type": "css",
          "expression": ".card-header a",
          "attribute": "href"
        },
        "title": {
          "type": "css",
          "expression": ".card-header a",
          "attribute": "text"
        },
        "poet": {
          "type": "css",
          "expression": "footer .card-footer-item:first-child a",
          "attribute": "text"
        }
      }
    },
    "page_title": {                    // Optional global field outside the container
      "type": "css",
      "expression": "title",
      "attribute": "text"
    }
  }
}

For JSON endpoints, switch the response format and use jsonpath selectors:

{
  ...
  "response": { "type": "json" },
  "parse": {
    "items": {
      "type": "jsonpath",
      "selector": "items",
      "fields": {
        "link": { "type": "jsonpath", "expression": "url" },
        "title": { "type": "jsonpath", "expression": "title" }
      }
    }
  }
}

Parsing rules

  • Every definition must provide a link field either at the top level or inside parse.items.fields. Other fields are optional metadata attached to the queued item.
  • CSS and XPath rules may specify attribute:
    • text / inner_text applies normalize-space().
    • html / outer_html returns the raw HTML fragment.
    • Any other value reads that attribute from the element. When omitted, the handler uses text and, for link, falls back to href automatically.
  • Regex rules scan the HTML fragment associated with the current scope (page-level or container). Set attribute to a named/numbered capture group or rely on the first group.
  • post_filter lets you run a final regex on the extracted value and pick a named (value) group.
  • When you declare parse.items, each matching container is processed independently so missing fields in one card do not shift values for the rest.
  • For JSON responses (response.type = "json"), set the container type and field type to jsonpath and supply JMESPath expressions. Relative values are resolved against each container object and converted to strings automatically.

Fetch engines

  • httpx (default): supports custom headers, query params, JSON/body payloads, proxy inherited from the task preset, and optional timeout.
  • selenium: uses a remote Chrome session. Provide the hub URL under engine.options.url; only Chrome is supported at the moment. Optional keys: arguments (list or string), wait_for (type css/xpath + expression), wait_timeout, and page_load_timeout.

Note

A machine-readable schema is available at app/schema/task_definition.json if you want to validate your JSON with editors or CI tools.

How to generate POT tokens?

You need a pot provider server we already have the extractor bgutil-ytdlp-pot-provider pre-installed in the container. You can simply do the following to enable the support for it.

services:
  ytptube:
    user: "${UID:-1000}:${UID:-1000}" # change this to your user id and group id, for example: "1000:1000"
    image: ghcr.io/arabcoders/ytptube:latest
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config:rw
      - ./downloads:/downloads:rw
    tmpfs:
      - /tmp
    depends_on:
      - bgutil_provider
  bgutil_provider:
    init: true
    image: brainicism/bgutil-ytdlp-pot-provider:latest
    container_name: bgutil_provider
    restart: unless-stopped

Then simply create a new preset, and in the Command options for yt-dlp field set the following:

--extractor-args "youtubepot-bgutilhttp:base_url=http://bgutil_provider:4416"

For more information please visit bgutil-ytdlp-pot-provider project.

Troubleshooting and submitting issues

Before asking a question or submitting an issue for YTPTube, please remember that YTPTube is only a wrapper for yt-dlp. Any issues you might be experiencing with authentication to video websites, postprocessing, permissions, other yt-dlp options configurations which seem not to work, or anything else that concerns the workings of the underlying yt-dlp library, need not be opened on the YTPTube project.

In order to debug and troubleshoot them, it's advised to try using the yt-dlp binary directly first, bypassing the UI, and once that is working, importing the options that worked for you into a new preset.

Via HTTP

If you have enabled the web terminal via YTP_CONSOLE_ENABLED environment variable, simply go to Other > Terminal use the yt-dlp command, the interface is jailed to the yt-dlp binary you can't access anything else. Or from download form by clicking advanced options button than the yellow terminal icon Run directly in console.

Via CLI

Assuming your YTPTube container is called ytptube, run the following on your docker host to get a shell inside the container:

docker exec -ti ytptube bash
cd /downloads
yt-dlp ....

Once there, you can use the yt-dlp command freely.

Run behind reverse proxy.

It's advisable to run YTPTube behind a reverse proxy, if better authentication and/or HTTPS support are required.

Caddy http server

The following example Caddyfile gets a reverse proxy going behind caddy.

# If you are using sub-domain.
# make sure to change "ytptube:8081" to the actual name of your YTPTube container/port.
ytp.example.org {
  reverse_proxy ytptube:8081
}

# If you are using sub-folder, for example: https://example.org/ytptube/
# Also make sure to set the `YTP_BASE_PATH` environment variable to `/ytptube/`
# make sure to change "ytptube:8081" to the actual name of your YTPTube container/port.
example.org {
  redir /ytptube /ytptube/
  route /ytptube/* {
    reverse_proxy ytptube:8081
  }
}

How to autoload yt-dlp plugins?

Loading yt-dlp plugins in YTPTube is quite simple, we already have everything setup for you. simply, create a folder inside the /config directory named yt-dlp so, the path will be /config/yt-dlp. then follow yt-dlp plugins docs to know how to install the plugins.

Once you have installed the plugins, restart the container and the plugins will be auto-loaded on demand.

How to load random backgrounds from WatchState or any other source?

YTPTube can be configured to pull random background images from different sources, including WatchState which is another project of mine, simply change the YTP_PICTURES_BACKENDS environment variable to the following url

YTP_PICTURES_BACKENDS=https://watchstate.ip/v1/api/system/images/background?apikey=[api_key]

Where [api_key] is the api key you get from your WatchState instance.

How to use share folder or external storage as download target?

You can simply mount the share folder as target for /downloads path, but in some cases you might face issues with permissions or cross-device link errors. To avoid these issues, you can mount the share folder as a named volume, and then mount the named volume to /downloads/smb or /downloads/nfs.

services:
  ytptube:
    user: "${UID:-1000}:${UID:-1000}" # change this to your user id and group id, for example: "1000:1000"
    image: ghcr.io/arabcoders/ytptube:latest
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      # Config must be mounted locally as read-write sqlite doesn't support network mounts.
      - ./config:/config:rw
      # Mount a local directory
      - ./downloads:/downloads/local:rw
      # Mount the NFS share
      - nfs-data:/downloads/nfs:rw
      # Mount the SMB share
      - smb-data:/downloads/smb:rw
    tmpfs:
      - /tmp

volumes:
  nfs-data:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: nfs
      o: addr=10.0.0.3,rw,nfsvers=4 # <--- Change server IP and options
      device: ":/exported/path" # <--- Remote NFS path
  
  smb-data:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: cifs
      o: username=my_username,password=my_password,vers=3.0,uid=1000,gid=1000,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 # <--- Change options to fit your needs
      device: "//10.0.0.3/public" # <--- Remote SMB path

If you prefer, you can bypass YTPTube download_path and set it to / and completely manage your own mounts. However, please be aware that the file browser feature will expose whatever download_path is set to. So, if you set it to /, the file browser will expose the entire container filesystem.

The origin of the project.

The project first started as a fork meTube, since then it has been completely rewritten and redesigned. The original project was a great starting point, but it didn't align with my vision for the project and what i wanted to achieve with it.

How to use hardware acceleration for video transcoding?

As the container is rootless, we cannot do the necessary changes to the container to enable hardware acceleration. However, We do have the drivers and ffmpeg already installed and the CPU transcoding should work regardless. To enable hardware acceleration You need to alter your compose.yaml file to mount the necessary devices to the container. Here is an example of how to do it for debian based systems.

services:
 ytptube:
    ........ # see above for the rest of the configuration
    devices:
      # mount the dri devices to the container if you only have one gpu you can simply do the following
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri                       
      # Otherwise, selectively mount the devices you need.
      - /dev/dri/card0      # Intel GPU device
      - /dev/dri/renderD128 # Intel GPU render node
    group_add:
      # Add the necessary groups to the container to access the gpu devices.
      - 44   # it might be different on your system.                                 
      - 105  # it might be different on your system.

This setup should work for at VAAPI encoding in x86_64 containers.

Note

Your video, render group id might be different from mine, you can run the follow command in docker host server to get the group ids for both groups.

cat /etc/group | grep -E 'render|video'

video:x:44:your_docker_username
render:x:105:your_docker_username

In my docker host the group id for video is 44 and for render is 105. change what needed in the compose.yaml file to match your setup.

If for some reason the initial test for GPU encoding fails, YTPTube will fallback to software encoding. You can force software encoding by setting the YTP_STREAMER_VCODEC environment variable to libx264. If you want to force GPU encoding, set the YTP_STREAMER_VCODEC environment variable to one of the supported GPU codecs, for example h264_vaapi or h264_nvenc depending on your GPU. For more information about the supported codecs, please refer to the SegmentEncoders.py file.

If GPU encoding fails and software encoding is used, you will have to restart the container to try GPU encoding again. as we only test for GPU encoding once on first video stream.

Allowing internal URLs requests

By default, YTPTube prevents requests to internal resources. However, if you want to allow requests to internal URLs, you can set the YTP_ALLOW_INTERNAL_URLS environment variable to true. This will allow requests to internal URLs.

We do not recommend enabling this option unless you know what you are doing, as it can expose your internal network to potential security risks. This should only be used if it's truly needed.

How to setup CI on Gitea?

The docker container builder already support self-hosted repositories like Gitea, you simply need to define two things at your repository settings.

  1. Create a secret named GIT_TOKEN and set it to your Gitea personal access token.
  2. Create a variable named REGISTRY and set it to your docker registry, for example gitea.domain.org.

Thats it, the main.yml will now disable the docker/github container registries, and use your Gitea repository instead. It will follow the usual naming, your container name will be named REGISTRY/ytptube and the tags will be the same as the ones used in the github registry.

Unfortunately, the native-builder.yml workflow doesn't support self-hosted repositories at the moment.

Getting No space left on device error

If you encounter this error: OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device This indicates that either the /tmp or /downloads directory has run out of available space.

This issue commonly occurs when:

  • /tmp is mounted as tmpfs (memory-based storage)
  • Your system has limited RAM
  • You're downloading large video files

Since videos are temporarily stored in /tmp before being moved to the final download location, memory-based storage may be insufficient for large downloads.

To fix the issue, modify your compose.yaml to use a disk-based directory for temporary files:

services:
  ytptube:
    user: "${UID:-1000}:${UID:-1000}"
    image: ghcr.io/arabcoders/ytptube:latest
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config:rw
      - ./downloads:/downloads/local:rw
      - ./temp:/tmp:rw

Note

Replace the tmpfs mount with a local directory volume (./temp:/tmp:rw). This allows temporary files to use disk space instead of RAM.

After making the changes, restart your container. This should resolve the "No space left on device" error during download.

How to prevent loading screen during YouTube premieres?

Depending on how you look at it, YTPTube live download implementation is rather great and fast. However, during YouTube premieres, usually streams will contain a loading screen of say, 1-5 minutes before the actual video content starts playing. By default we wait for 5min + the duration of the video before starting the download to ensure we get the full video without the loading screen. However, you can override the behavior by setting the following environment variable:

YTP_LIVE_PREMIERE_BUFFER=10

Where YTP_LIVE_PREMIERE_BUFFER is the buffer time in minutes to add to the video duration before the download starts. This will help in case the premiere has a longer loading screen than usual.

How to bypass CF challenges?

You need to setup FlareSolverr and then set the YTP_FLARESOLVERR_URL environment variable to point to your FlareSolverr instance. For example:

services:
  ytptube:
    user: "${UID:-1000}:${UID:-1000}" # change this to your user id and group id, for example: "1000:1000"
    image: ghcr.io/arabcoders/ytptube:latest
    container_name: ytptube
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - YTP_FLARESOLVERR_URL=http://flaresolverr:8191/v1
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config:rw
      - ./downloads:/downloads:rw
    tmpfs:
      - /tmp
    depends_on:
      - flaresolverr
  flaresolverr:
    image: flaresolverr/flaresolverr:latest
    container_name: flaresolverr
    restart: unless-stopped

For more information please visit FlareSolverr project.