Grabber is a Go library that provides a simple and unified interface for downloading media from various social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X, and YouTube. Built on top of the powerful yt-dlp tool, it offers a clean Go API with configurable options for download behavior, platform detection, and support for both photos and videos.

Key features include:

• Generic interface for downloading media from supported platforms
• Configurable options for download behavior
• Automatic platform detection
• Support for photos, videos, and GIFs
• Built on top of github.com/lrstanley/go-ytdlp

(back to top)

• Go
• yt-dlp
• go-ytdlp

(back to top)

To get started with Grabber, you'll need to have Go installed on your system and ensure that the required dependencies are available.

• Go 1.24.3 or later
• yt-dlp (automatically handled by the library)
• Optional: ffmpeg (required for video processing)

Install the library using Go modules:

go get github.com/ethanbaker/grabber

Other prerequisites, such as ffmpeg, can be installed for specific post processing/reencoding tasks. For example, ffmpeg is used to reencode mp4 videos being sent to iOS from telegram. To install ffmpeg for linux, run:

sudo apt install ffmpeg

(back to top)

Here's a simple example of how to use Grabber to download media:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "os"
    "time"

    "github.com/ethanbaker/grabber"
)

func main() {
    // Create a grabber with default options
    g := grabber.New()

    // Check if URL was provided as argument
    if len(os.Args) < 2 {
        log.Fatal("Usage: go run main.go <url>")
    }

    url := os.Args[1]

    // Identify the platform
    platform := g.IdentifyPlatform(url)
    if platform == grabber.Unknown {
        log.Fatal("Unsupported platform for URL:", url)
    }

    fmt.Printf("Detected platform: %s\n", platform)
    fmt.Printf("Downloading from: %s\n", url)

    // Download the media
    name := fmt.Sprintf("download-%s", time.Now().Format("20060102_150405"))
    result, err := g.Download(url, name)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("Download failed: %v", err)
    }

    // Print the results
    for _, file := range result {
        fmt.Printf("Successfully downloaded file %s!\n", file.Name)
        fmt.Printf("\tPath: %s\n", file.Path)
        fmt.Printf("\tType: %s\n", file.MediaType)
    }

    // Perform post download operations based on platform
    // ...
}

You can customize the download behavior by providing custom options:

package main

import (
    "github.com/ethanbaker/grabber"
)

func main() {
    // Create grabber with a few tweaked options
    g := grabber.New().WithBaseDir("downloads/").
            WithMaxFileSize("50M").
            WithNoPlaylist(true)

    // ----------------------------------------

    // Create a grabber with fully custom options
    options := &grabber.Options{
        BaseDir:           "./my-downloads/",
        MaxFileSize:       "100M",
        Format:            "best",
        RestrictFilenames: true,
        NoPlaylist:        true,
        WriteThumbnail:    false,
        OutputTemplate:    "%(title)s.%(ext)s",
    }
    
    g := grabber.New().WithOptions(options)
}

The default options for a grabber are:

&grabber.Options{
    BaseDir:           "media/",
    MaxFileSize:       "49M",
    Format:            "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best",
    RestrictFilenames: true,
    NoPlaylist:        true,
    WriteThumbnail:    true,
    RecodeVideo:       "",
    OutputTemplate:    "media.%(ext)s",
}

The library includes an example Telegram bot implementation that demonstrates how to integrate Grabber into a messaging application. The bot can receive URLs from users and automatically download and send the media back. This is particularly useful for creating bots that can archive or redistribute content from various social media platforms.

To run the Telegram bot example:

1. Create a bot token through @BotFather
2. Set up your environment with the bot token
3. Run the bot and send it URLs from supported platforms

• TikTok
• Instagram Reels
• Twitter/X
• YouTube

For more examples, please refer to the documentation.

(back to top)

• Core downloading functionality
• Platform detection
• Configurable options
• Telegram bot example
• Additional platform support
• Discord implementation

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

(back to top)

For issues and suggestions, please include as much useful information as possible. Review the documentation and make sure the issue is actually present or the suggestion is not included. Please share issues/suggestions on the issue tracker.

For patches and feature additions, please submit them as pull requests. Please adhere to the conventional commits standard for commit messaging. In addition, please try to name your git branch according to your new patch. These standards are a great guide you can follow.

You can follow these steps below to create a pull request:

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m "feat: add amazing feature")
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

(back to top)

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

(back to top)

Ethan Baker - contact@ethanbaker.dev - LinkedIn

Project Link: https://github.com/ethanbaker/grabber

(back to top)

• yt-dlp - The powerful media downloader that powers this library
• go-ytdlp - Go bindings for yt-dlp

(back to top)