this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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I had Pinchflat set up on my server and never got around to putting it back in after I nuked it. I remember organizing backed up videos in jellyfin was a mess I never quite got working as well as I’d like.

I see there’s a couple alternatives mentioned on the Pinchflat GitHub. What is everybody else using to accomplish this?

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[–] piwakawakas@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 hour ago

Is there anything that works for Vimeo?

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

On Android I use Seal. Aside from an occasional hiccup it’s awesome and does a phenomenal job 99% of the time. If I ever can’t get one item to work and there’s no alternative, I use one of the ones on my Linux machine. I’ll post the name when I’m home and can check.

[–] helios@social.ggbox.fr 36 points 8 hours ago

Most kids today don't know how to use a computer, but old farts like me use yt-dlp.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 56 minutes ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
Plex Brand of media server package
SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.

[Thread #93 for this comm, first seen 14th Feb 2026, 14:01] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] bigb@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

I use metube and Pinchflat.

Metube is great for one-off video downloads and works for many sites including social media. This comes in handy a lot when I want to send a short reel to friends without linking to Facebook, etc.

Pinchflat automatically downloads my favorites playlists and a couple other channels that I follow. These videos go into specific folders that are linked to Plex libraries.

[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 hours ago

I use GUI wrappers for yt-dlp - Parabolic on Fedora GNOME and Seal on Android

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 90 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Yt-dlp is what I see mostly

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 19 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Make sure you update often though. Youtube/Google/Alphabet are playing whackamole.

You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the release binaries

If you installed with pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 hours ago

I just did uv tool install yt-dlp[default] --with mutagen. Updates are handled automatically.

[–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

If you installed with pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program

Simply running pip install yt-dlp doesn't update though, right? You need to add an upgrade flag, so either:

  • pip install yt-dlp --upgrade
  • pip install yt-dlp -U

EDIT: Maybe I should actually read this documentation that I am commenting about. Their steps to initially install it with PIP mention to use the -U flag anyway. That flag is meant for updating, but it won't make the package install wrong if used during initial installation of the package or anything, so no reason not to.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

I put it in a container that has a build process every week.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 7 points 15 hours ago

Yt-dlp is the way. J-Downloader is okay too if you need a good interface but dlp is just too damn powerful to not use

[–] ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 2 points 13 hours ago

Yup, don't need anything else.

[–] 404@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 hours ago

I use metube on the server and made mobile integration with Android using "HTTP Shortcuts" to easily submit links to metube via its API. Just a simple Android share click and it's done.

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago

I've downloaded many videos with PipePipe on my Android.

[–] wildcardology@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I use jdownloader2.

Paste a YouTube link and it will download the thumbnail, the video, a separate audio, and the transcript.

It will also download from a lot of video hosting sites if you know what I mean 😜

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Stacher already dines the one off things like that for me. I’m more looking at automated runs.

[–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 13 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

As others have already said, yt-dlp is absolutely the gold standard. It even works in Termux. As for a dedicated Android app, there are apps like Seal which are effectively just wrappers for yt-dlp. Then the open source YouTube clients like Tubular, which are primarily for browsing/watching videos, have a download button on every video.

[–] SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Android users can use YTDLnis for a nice GUI FE. It's also available for install from IzzyOnDroid.

[–] guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip 11 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

yt-dlp is great for cli, and if you want a web gui, you can run metube in docker

[–] markz@suppo.fi 1 points 6 hours ago

I don't think docker is a good solution for people who need a gui

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 11 hours ago

If I wanted a web UI I would just make a script that ran yt-dlp $1 and then use php shell_exec(script URL);

[–] Buck@jlai.lu 3 points 12 hours ago

I still use Pinchflat. It doesn’t exactly do as I like, but I’m mostly just downloading two channels, so it’s okay enough for me.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 points 11 hours ago

TubeArchivist rules

[–] Gerald@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 12 hours ago

I use Tubular

[–] artyom@piefed.social 5 points 15 hours ago
[–] Vaggumon@lemmy.zip 2 points 12 hours ago

Yt.dlp. I wrote a small pyrhon script to give me a gui. Works really well.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Metube is a nice UI with yt-dlp as a background that is updated regularly.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I’m not really looking to do this with apps since google is pretty close to the regime so anything good could be taken down at any time. I want something to copies it down and I pull in with my existing stack like Pinchflat did, but cleaner.

Part of this is I’m still on apple. I’m looking at fleeing, but certainly not to google. Until I finally get off my ass and get a Linux phone, let’s just assume this has to work from a webUI

[–] DarkSirrush@piefed.ca 2 points 10 hours ago

I have been using a docker container - ytdl-sub, which uses yt-dlp to download YouTube videos with metadata for jellyfin

[–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

You're painting yourself into a corner by avoiding degoogled Android operating systems. I guess my suggestion for you would probably have to be to install yt-dlp on your server, and then use an SSH app when you need to download a video. Maybe someone more familiar with Apple can offer a better suggestion.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 12 hours ago

I was looking at a pixel running graphene this last upgrade cycle but google taking a swing a third party roms chased me back to apple for now.

[–] dan@upvote.au 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

On Android, I use ytdlnis, which is a wrapper around yt-dlp. You can "share" a video from to YouTube app to ytdlnis and it'll add it to the download queue.

[–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 3 points 13 hours ago

I always recommend Seal just because I can never remember the name of this app. Has anyone made use of both and has an opinion on which is better?