Yark

YouTube archiving made simple.

Installation

To install Yark, simply download Python 3.9+ and FFmpeg (optional), then run the following:

$ pip3 install yark

Managing your Archive

Once you've installed Yark, think of a name for your archive (e.g., "foobar") and copy the target's url:

$ yark new foobar https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSMdm6bUYIBN0KfS2CVuEPA

Now that you've created the archive, you can tell Yark to download all videos and metadata using the refresh command:

$ yark refresh foobar

Once everything has been downloaded, Yark will automatically give you a status report of what's changed since the last refresh:

Viewing your Archive

Viewing you archive is easy, just type view with your archives name:

$ yark view foobar

This will pop up an offline website in your browser letting you watch all videos 🚀

Under each video is a rich history report filled with timelines and graphs, as well as a noting feature which lets you add timestamped and permalinked comments 👐

Light and dark modes are both available and automatically apply based on the system's theme.

Details

Here are some things to keep in mind when using Yark; the good and the bad:

• Don't create a new archive again if you just want to update it, Yark accumulates all new metadata for you via timestamps
• Feel free to suggest new features via the issues tab on this repository
• Scheduling isn't a feature just yet, please use cron or something similar!

Archive Format

The archive format itself is simple and consists of a directory-based structure with a core metadata file and all thumbnail/video data in their own directories as typical files:

• [name]/ – Your self-contained archive
  • yark.json – Archive file with all metadata
  • yark.bak – Backup archive file to protect against data damage
  • videos/ – Directory containing all known videos
    • [id].* – Files containing video data for YouTube videos
  • thumbnails/ – Directory containing all known thumbnails
    • [hash].png – Files containing thumbnails with its BLAKE2 hash

It's best to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your archive by looking at files which look interesting to you in it, everything is quite readable.