yt_down

A simple CLI tool to download YouTube audio as MP3, written in Rust. Uses yt-dlp under the hood.

Rust here is solely for learning purposes!

Features

• Downloads YouTube videos as MP3 audio
• Supports browser cookies for bot detection bypass
• Docker support for easy reproducibility
• Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS)

Prerequisites

• yt-dlp
• ffmpeg
• deno (for YouTube challenge solving)

Windows

winget install yt-dlp

Linux/macOS

pip install yt-dlp
# or
brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg

Installation

From Source

cd yt_down
cargo build --release

The binary will be at target/release/yt_down.

Docker

cd yt_down
docker build -t yt_down .

Usage

Native

./yt_down
# Then paste a YouTube URL when prompted

Docker

The image defaults to the web server. For the CLI, override the entrypoint:

docker run -it --entrypoint yt_down --rm -v "$(pwd)/downloads:/downloads" yt_down

For the web server:

docker run -p 8080:8080 --rm yt_down

Then open http://localhost:8080.

With Cookies (for bot detection)

If YouTube blocks downloads, you can provide cookies:

1. Export cookies from your browser using the "Get cookies.txt LOCALLY" extension
2. Run with cookies mounted:

docker run -it --entrypoint yt_down --rm -v "$(pwd)/downloads:/downloads" -v "$(pwd)/cookies.txt:/cookies.txt" yt_down

Cloud Deployment (CI/CD)

Secure Cookie Setup

Cookies contain authentication credentials and should never be committed to git. Instead, use Google Cloud Secret Manager:

1. Store cookies as a secret:

   gcloud secrets create youtube-cookies --data-file=cookies.txt

2. Grant Cloud Build access to the secret:

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $PROJECT_ID \
     --member=serviceAccount:$PROJECT_NUMBER@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com \
     --role=roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor

Deploy via Cloud Build

gcloud builds submit --config cloudbuild.yaml

Setup GitHub Integration (Optional)

Create a Cloud Build trigger for automatic deployment on push:

gcloud builds triggers create github \
  --repo-name=yt_down \
  --repo-owner=YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME \
  --branch-pattern=main \
  --build-config=cloudbuild.yaml

How It Works

1. Prompts for a YouTube URL
2. Extracts audio using yt-dlp
3. Converts to MP3 using ffmpeg
4. Saves with the video title as filename