If you are a Linux terminal enthusiast who wants to watch YouTube videos without opening a browser, then ytfzf is a command line utility that you might be interested in.
ytfzf is simply a POSIX script that allows you to search, play, and download YouTube videos without leaving the terminal.
It is available for all Unix-like operating systems, including Linux and macOS. However, the thumbnail preview feature is not currently available on macOS.
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How to install YTFZF video downloader?
The easiest way to get ytfzf on any operating system is to first clone the repository and then install it with the Makefile.
If you are using Arch Linux, then ytfzf is already available in the AUR repo, which you can install by running the command:
After installing the utility, you also need to install some of the dependencies it uses:
- mpv video player
- youtube-dl for downloading videos
- fzf for menu (optional)
- jq for parsing JSON data
- thumbnail overlay (optional)
For Debian-based distributions, you need to install youtube-dl from its official repo, as Debian repos contain the old version.
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And if you want to search for videos with thumbnails, you also need to install the Ueberzug utility:
Features of YTFZF video downloader
Once you have properly installed ytfzf, you can start searching for YouTube videos by running the command ytfzf or ytfzf :
If you also want to see the thumbnail preview, you can use the -t flag as ytfzf -t<query> .
As you can see, it lists the top result in the right panel and the thumbnail preview of the current videos in the left panel.
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You can select the video to play using the default MPV video player. Key binding for MPV player is also available, such as f for full screen, J for subtitles and L for single-loop.
If you want to close the video selection message, you can either press ESC or CTRL + C.
Besides, it also allows you to queue videos using fzf multi-select option. You can press tab to select a video and queue it in mpv.
Ytfzf is under continuous development. If you want to contribute or learn more about it, such as changing the configuration, take a look at the official repository.
Information source: fossbytes.com
