yoinks

yoinks is a nicer front end for yt-dlp. Same 1,800-plus supported sites and the same download engine underneath, but wrapped in a terminal UI where you pick format and quality from a menu instead of memorizing flags. MIT licensed. Install with `npm install -g yoinks` or just run `npx yoinks`.

Node 18+ is the only thing you need. It fetches the standalone yt-dlp binary into `~/.yoinks/bin` on first run and either finds ffmpeg on your PATH or falls back to a bundled copy, so there is no Python toolchain and no ffmpeg install to manage. That is the most annoying part of using yt-dlp directly, and it is simply gone here.

This is for anyone who downloads video occasionally and resents relearning flag syntax every time. If you download video inside scripts, skip it and call yt-dlp directly, because the entire value here is an interactive menu and that is exactly what you do not want in automation. Free at any scale.

The catch: it is a wrapper, so it inherits everything yt-dlp inherits. When a site changes its player and yt-dlp breaks for a week, yoinks breaks with it. Scriptable flags are listed on the roadmap, which is a polite way of saying they do not exist yet.