Youtube Playlist Free Downloader Python Script ((install)) Jun 2026

I run a small community radio station, and we rely on archiving copyright-free music and spoken-word playlists from YouTube. Clicking “download” on 200+ videos manually? No thanks. So I found a Python script on GitHub that claims to download entire YouTube playlists with one command – pytube + ffmpeg .

import os import re from pytubefix import Playlist def download_youtube_playlist(url, output_dir='my_downloads'): try: # Initialize Playlist pl = Playlist(url) # Sanitize playlist title to create a valid folder name safe_title = re.sub(r'[\\/*?:"<>|]', "", pl.title) save_path = os.path.join(output_dir, safe_title) if not os.path.exists(save_path): os.makedirs(save_path) print(f"Created directory: save_path") print(f"\nPlaylist: pl.title") print(f"Number of videos: len(pl.video_urls)\n") for video in pl.videos: print(f"Downloading: video.title...") # 'get_highest_resolution' picks the best MP4 (video+audio combined) stream = video.streams.get_highest_resolution() stream.download(output_path=save_path) print("Done!\n") print("--- All downloads completed successfully ---") except Exception as e: print(f"An error occurred: e") if __name__ == "__main__": link = input("Paste your YouTube Playlist URL: ").strip() download_youtube_playlist(link) Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard Why this works well: youtube playlist free downloader python script

: To download 1080p or 4K video, you must have ffmpeg installed on your system. yt-dlp will automatically use it to merge the best video and audio streams. I run a small community radio station, and