A command line for YouTube. ytb resolves any video, channel, playlist, comment thread, transcript, or YouTube Music record into clean structured data. One pure-Go binary, no API key, no quota.

Install • Commands • Usage • The local store

It talks to the same public InnerTube endpoints the YouTube site uses, so there is no key to register and no quota to budget. Responses are cached on disk, so a repeat call is instant. Pass --db and every record is also upserted into a local SQLite store you can query with SQL.

ytb is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with YouTube or Google.

go install github.com/tamnd/ytb-cli/cmd/ytb@latest

Or grab a prebuilt binary, a Linux package (deb/rpm/apk), or a container image from the releases:

brew install tamnd/tap/ytb
docker run --rm ghcr.io/tamnd/ytb:latest search 'lofi hip hop' -n 10

Shell completion is built in: ytb completion bash|zsh|fish|powershell.

yt-dlp is optional and only needed for download, extract, and as a transcript fallback when YouTube gates the caption endpoints.

Full reference and guides live at ytb-cli.tamnd.com.

ytb video dQw4w9WgXcQ                         # full video metadata
ytb channel @MrBeast --videos -n 20            # a channel's uploads
ytb search 'lofi hip hop' -n 50               # search
ytb comments dQw4w9WgXcQ --sort new -n 100   # newest 100 comments
ytb transcript dQw4w9WgXcQ                    # transcript as text
ytb trending --category music                 # what is hot right now
ytb music search 'rick astley'                # YouTube Music search

Records come out as a table (the default on a terminal), list, markdown, JSON, JSONL, CSV, TSV, url, or raw. The table uses rounded borders and a colored header on a true-color terminal; JSON and JSONL are syntax-highlighted too:

ytb search 'lofi hip hop' --fields id,title,channel,views -o table
ytb video dQw4w9WgXcQ -o json
ytb search 'go' -n 50 -o jsonl | jq 'select(.views > 100000)'
ytb search 'go' -o url
ytb channel @MrBeast --videos -o jsonl > mrbeast.jsonl
ytb playlist PLFgquLnL59alCl_2TQvOiD5Vgm1hCaGSI -o url | ytb video -

Chain commands through stdin with - for batch lookups:

ytb search 'go programming' -o id | ytb video -

-o, --output       list|table|markdown|json|jsonl|csv|tsv|url|id|raw   (auto: table on a TTY, jsonl when piped)
    --fields       comma-separated columns to keep, in order
    --no-header    omit the header row
    --template     Go text/template applied per record
-n, --limit        max records (0 = unlimited)
    --max-pages    max continuation pages (0 = unlimited)
-j, --workers      concurrency for detail fetches (default 4)
    --rate         min delay between requests (default 500ms)
    --timeout      per-request timeout (default 30s)
    --retries      retry attempts on 429/5xx (default 4)
    --hl           InnerTube interface language (default en)
    --gl           InnerTube content country (default US)
-q, --quiet        suppress progress output
    --color        auto|always|never
    --db           path to the optional SQLite store
    --no-cache     bypass the on-disk cache
    --dry-run      print the requests that would be made

Pass --db <path> and ytb also upserts every record it fetches into a SQLite database: videos, channels, playlists, comments, caption tracks, formats, and the relationships between them. That turns the same commands into a crawler and gives you SQL over what you have collected.

ytb channel @MrBeast --videos --db yt.db     # stream and persist in one pass
ytb db stats --db yt.db                       # row counts per table
ytb db query "select title, views from videos order by views desc limit 10" --db yt.db
ytb db search videos "lofi" --db yt.db        # full-text search
ytb export @MrBeast --db yt.db --out site/    # render the store as Markdown

For larger collection runs, the seed/crawl/queue/jobs commands turn the store into a work queue:

ytb search 'podcast' -o id --enqueue --db yt.db  # seed from a search
ytb crawl --db yt.db -j 8                         # drain with 8 workers
ytb queue --db yt.db                              # see what is pending

0  success
1  error
2  usage error
3  no results
4  auth required
5  rate limited
6  not found
7  unsupported (missing optional tool such as yt-dlp)

cmd/ytb/     thin main entry point
cli/         cobra commands and output rendering
youtube/     HTTP client, InnerTube transport, parsers, models, optional store
docs/        documentation site (Hugo, tago-doks theme)

make build   # ./bin/ytb
make test    # go test ./...
make vet     # go vet ./...
make fmt     # gofmt -s -w .

Requires Go 1.23+. yt-dlp is optional; install it from its releases if you want download, extract, and transcript recovery.

Push a version tag and GitHub Actions runs GoReleaser:

git tag -a v0.3.2 -m "v0.3.2"
git push --tags

The image tag carries no v prefix (ghcr.io/tamnd/ytb:0.3.2).

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.

ytb is an independent client. Use it to access public data responsibly and within YouTube's Terms of Service. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC.