This is a really simple bat file wrapper for yt-dlp (a fork of youtube-dl). It gives you a user-friendly interface that you can use to download audio and video files.
It also automatically keeps yt-dlp up to date to make sure you get the very latest bug fixes and improvements.
Files are output by default to the 'output' subfolder.
Most of the audio/video downloaders are filled with ads or junk. The command line tool youtube-dl and its forks/successors don't have this problem, but they are cumbersome for an everyday person to use, especially people with very little computer experience.
I started by creating a very simple tool to just fetch audio files, but I ended up expanding it to do a lot more things after friends and family wanted my tool.
You need to place grab.bat, ffmpeg.exe and wget.exe all in the same folder. (I recommend not putting anything else in that folder.)
Those files can be found >> HERE <<
You also need to create a subfolder next to them, called 'output'.
Then simply run grab.bat and away you go!
Revision 5A of GRAB.BAT was released on 10 July 2023. If you have an older revision, you are advised to update to the latest one. The batch file does not update itself, so you will have to do this manually.
Note: I haven't updated ffmpeg or wget in a long while, as the versions I originally downloaded to use with GRAB.BAT still seem to be working, so the ones bundled with it on this site are pretty old. If this bothers you, it shouldn't break anything for you to update them at your own leisure (although I suggest using statically compiled versions).
The supported sites list matches that of yt-dlp.
Windows 10 or later.
There is a patched fork for legacy Windows versions available HERE (version 5X, created and last tested on 15th January 2024). This version is forked from version 5A. It bundles alternative versions of choice, ffmpeg and wget that are XP-compatible. When run on Windows 8.1 or older, it will also switch to downloading nicolaasjan's fork of yt-dlp, which is compiled specifically to run on older Windows versions. It should work on Windows XP Service Pack 3 or newer.
I'm not currently intending to maintain this patch. It was intentionally not merged into the main script because I have no guarantee of updates and I'm not regularly using old Windows versions so I can't provide any support. (Use at your own risk!)
At the end of 2021, youtube-dl stopped being maintained. YouTube then rolled out an update to its service which crippled youtube-dl download speeds. This problem was fixed in GRAB.BAT revision 4, which switched over to using a fork called yt-dlp that does not suffer from the speed issue.
If you're having performance issues with GRAB.BAT downloading from YouTube very slowly, it's therefore likely you have a very old revision of the script which still downloads youtube-dl from the original web server. You are therefore advised to update to the latest version of GRAB.BAT, which should switch you over to yt-dlp and fix the issue.
This is caused by the line endings being corrupted in the script. They need to be CRLF but if you download from a non-Windows device they can get converted to LF only, which for some reason makes Windows throw a hissy fit and not find some of the goto labels.
I recommend just downloading GRAB.BAT directly from your Windows device, then you shouldn't have this issue.
If you still have problems, just open something like Notepad++ and convert to CRLF and it should go away.
Since this is a bat file it only works on Windows. Obviously.
Licensed under WTFPL version 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, December 2004
Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
as the name is changed.
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
---------------------------------------------------------------------