sometimes youtube believes I’m a bot and won’t allow downloading stuff from them with yt-dlp 2026.07.04 on debian 13.6.

I could torify the whole computer, so next time I open a terminal and execute yt-dlp it uses tor by default. Sadly, I don’t know how to do that.

Another way would be to torify only yt-dlp, but neither do I know how to do that.

Changing the mac address and hostname did nothing.

Can you help?

  • Cipherd ( cipherd@lemmy.ml ) 
    2·
    2 months ago

    Start a tor daemon with SOCKS5 proxy:

    $ tor socksport 9050

    Then run yt-dlp through it:

    $ yt-dlp --proxy socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 <your arguments>
  • yuman ( yuman@programming.dev ) 
    2·
    2 months ago

    as to “how” it’s as simple as torify yt-dlp https://youtu.be/etc. I don’t think it’ll help, though. maybe try some alternative frontend like Freetube that allows you to download videos interactively.

  • vas ( vas@lemmy.ml ) 
    1·
    2 months ago

    I’ve noticed that *not using* youtube for a while gets you ublocked, too. Which is only good, if you think about it. Most often (even if not always), your days will get a bit healthier, and the lifting of the block is only a bonus when you really need that rare video, too.

    I haven’t found other solutions or tricks; nor have I tried after I’ve realised that this one works. I take it as a “hint” from google, to get away from the screen (YT) for a few days.

  • Ethanol ( Ethanol@pawb.social ) English
    1·
    2 months ago

    oh hey, I had that issue recently where YouTube thought I was a bot and yt-dlp gave me an error “sign in to confirm you’re not a bot”. This issue is actually mentioned on the yt-dlp FAQ and they said to use a proof of origin token provider (POT provider). After setting up the recommended one made by Brainicism, I only had to run it once, open a video with the POT provider in the background and since then YouTube doesn’t believe I’m a bot anymore. Now yt-dlp works without using the POT provider again.

    Not sure for how long, sometimes YouTube still denies me videos on the first try but usually it works after a re-try.

    PS.: On the FAQ it is also mentioned to not use your YouTube account token with yt-dlp, else YouTube might associate your account with a bot and ban it.