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Seal: a fully featured YouTube downloader for Android based on yt-dlp (github.com)

submitted 2 months ago by GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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I just came across this amazing app. Idk much about yt-dlp but the app seems to fully support it, even with custom commands and stuff. Of course I tested it and it worked well (with just 1 video fail to download out of approximately 10). Though by default it seems to download videos without audio so make sure to click the small "Audio" button in the download menu and enable it.

I recently saw someone recommending using a privacy respecting frontend for searching videos and downloading them instead of watching them online for better privacy and consistency so I hope someone will find it useful... or just use it to download videos because that's what most people do anyways.

Also I hope I'm not copying anyone's post here. My Lemmy client doesn't support search so I can't check if there are any posts about this app.

P. S. Excuse my usage of the foul phrase "YouTube downloader" to describe this app. I just wanted to make it easier for less tech savvy people to understand what this app is and how it can be useful for them.

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[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

What is the advantage to Newpipe? On the PC I know why yt-dlp is king, but as an app?

[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

Newpipe is a very different kind of app. This one is a downloader. You can't watch YouTube videos using it.

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Yes, exactly, you can do both with Newpipe. So what is the advantage of this?

[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Better UI, many more downloading related features and options, probably less trackable connections to YouTube and an ability to download from other websites.

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Ah, got it, thank you. Now I just need a source of YouTube links to download on my phone :D

[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

You can use any source you like. You can even use it to check random YouTube links you find in articles and stuff with probably less tracking too (but you might have to modify the links to the standard form).

[-] Walking_coffin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The quality of the tool. Newpipe is mainly here to watch content. Sure, it has the ability to download said content but not in a granular manner.

Its like climbing mountains in cheap sandals or doing digital paintings in paint. Yt-dlp has a lot of options to get exactly what you want. Seal gives a simple interface which in itself has a bit more than what Newpipe has. The real power of Seal comes from the custom commands. Said commands being the ones you would use in your terminal or scripts using yt-dlp directly without a frontend.

To top it off, Seal can download everything yt-dlp allows you to download. It is not limited to the few sites that Newpipe support.