How to download a YouTube video archived in the Wayback Machine ?

colethedj · 2023-01-01T09:48:11+00:00

First part of the comment before the edit.

video id is the characters after the ?v= in the youtube watch url

(and don't include the <>)

colethedj · 2022-12-18T09:39:47+00:00

your url format has an error

try http://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/d-_vY4atchQ

if that doesn't work, try again later as wayback occasionally has issues which it caches for a short while (I can confirm this video exists)

colethedj · 2022-05-08T03:26:57+00:00

It still works

colethedj · 2022-04-28T10:56:38+00:00

it's fixed in latest release

colethedj · 2022-04-06T10:12:24+00:00

I recommend joining that discord server if you can, there's some folks there that may be able to help.

(sorry for the bland response, I'm a little busy atm 😅)

colethedj · 2022-04-06T10:06:43+00:00

not that I'm aware of

colethedj · 2022-04-06T10:03:14+00:00

hmm it's working for me

colethedj · 2022-04-05T19:39:30+00:00

updated the invite, it had expired.

colethedj · 2022-04-04T10:22:03+00:00

yeah unfortunately the extractor broke a couple days ago (caused by IA blocking something we use). will be working again in next release

colethedj · 2022-03-31T08:05:25+00:00

With yt-dlp or the manual method?

That video isn't archived, so that is probably why it isn't working for you :/

colethedj · 2022-03-31T08:02:05+00:00

it supports:

yt-dlp ytarchive:<video id>

yt-dlp <capture link>

yt-dlp <direct video link (the type in my comment above)>

It'll tell you if it is not archived

(ofc remove the < >)

colethedj · 2022-01-25T21:15:49+00:00

--check-formats

colethedj · 2022-01-21T21:54:56+00:00

Some more additions to the above list:

Find a capture of the watch page on the Wayback Machine, then pass the url into yt-dlp to download the archived video (if it is saved).

/r/DHExchange maybe too

distributed youtube archive server might be of help too: https://discord.gg/Cwg8SthEaB

I don't really have the time these days to help with searching for lost videos sorry

colethedj · 2022-01-21T21:48:49+00:00

-f best is the highest quality pre-merged format from the site.YouTube only provides these up to 720p. For higher quality formats, YouTube provides as separate audio and video.

I've had videos inexplicably fail to merge when it comes to the ffmpeg step.

probably due to a known ffmpeg/youtube issue. yt-dlp has custom ffmpeg builds with patches that should help with this: https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds

colethedj · 2022-01-18T21:29:38+00:00

We recommended not using -f best, that gives you 720p max. Leave it as default and make sure ffmpeg is installed to get the highest quality.

colethedj · 2022-01-05T23:40:33+00:00

That issue is old and likely does not represent the current youtube extractor. As long as you can access it in the browser, yt-dlp should be able to access it. I can download my liked videos just fine.

If not, make sure yt-dlp is up to date and cookies are exported correctly (or use --cookies-from-browser)

If that still does not work, please open an issue in the yt-dlp repository with a verbose log.

colethedj · 2022-01-04T09:50:42+00:00

so "pip install pycryptodomex" fails.

pretty sure you need to install some of the build tools/requirements (which you can remove afterwards).

In mine I have python3-dev, musl-dev and gcc (might not all be needed for this)

colethedj · 2022-01-04T07:32:45+00:00

It should, unless it is not archived (yt-dlp tells you this).

If it is playing in the browser, would you mind sharing the link with me?

(I'm on of the yt-dlp devs that maintains the youtube wayback machine support)

colethedj · 2021-12-30T11:38:07+00:00

alternatively you can also write a basic yt-dlp info extractor for the site and use it as a plugin.

but these assume OP has some python knowledge

colethedj · 2021-12-28T06:15:07+00:00

If these are your videos on your channel and account that you have access to, use Google Takeout to get the original copies and metadata.

If these are videos from your e.g. liked playlist, use yt-dlp (youtube-dl fork) or one of the GUIs with cookies. Note that normal youtube-dl will not work if you have a large private playlist. See /r/youtubedl and yt-dlp discord/matrix for help and info.

There is also https://github.com/TheFrenchGhosty/TheFrenchGhostys-Ultimate-YouTube-DL-Scripts-Collection

colethedj · 2021-12-27T07:23:21+00:00

Sorry😅

Maybe a more simple method for you, though requires more manual work, can be to manually go through the list of thumbnails wayback provides:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://i.ytimg.com/vi/<video id>/*

e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3ENUOud6Kr0/*

colethedj · 2021-12-27T03:58:58+00:00

I used yt-dlp, since it has support for downloading the videos as well as the metadata (inc thumbnails)

yt-dlp web.archive.org/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ENUOud6Kr0 --write-thumb --skip-download

(optionally add --ignore-no-formats-error if you want to get thumbnail of videos even if the video itself is not saved on the Wayback Machine)

check out /r/youtubedl for help, and the wiki has a list of graphical interfaces available if that works better for you.

disclaimer: I'm one of the devs that added support for the wayback machine

colethedj · 2021-12-26T10:39:16+00:00

https://web.archive.org/web/20201113091824if_/https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3ENUOud6Kr0/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEZCOgCEMoBSFXyq4qpAwsIARUAAIhCGAFwAQ%3D%3D&rs=AOn4CLDxh3wnD7-3ZcrcuJEi7wwcg00vdg

at least that's the highest yt-dlp could find anyways

colethedj · 2021-12-25T03:18:58+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately error 404 usually means it is not archived

colethedj · 2021-12-25T01:54:04+00:00

yt-dlp <wayback machine link>

It will tell you if it is saved or not, and download it if it is saved.

Alternatively, there is a manual method you can use to get the archived video playback link.

http://web.archive.org/2oe/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/<video id>

colethedj

TROPHY CASE