yt-stream

Installation

npm install yt-stream

What is YT-Stream?

YT-Stream is a package which can download and search YouTube video's. YT-Stream is based on the codes of ytdl-core and play-dl and further extended to create a package which met to my needs.

API or scrape methods

YT-Stream allows both API (youtubei) and scrape methods to be used. By default the api method will always be used. To change this, an api key is required, which can be obtained from the Google Developer Console (YouTube Data API v3). This api key can be set by using the setApiKey function. This function requires one argument, which is the api key. Setting the api key does not automatically make the package use the api instead of the scrape method. This must be set by using the setPreference function. This function requires one argument, which is the method, and has an optional argument, which is the client which the package should use when making an api request. YT-Stream allows you to make an api request with a IOS or Android client, which can be manually set inside the second argument of the setPreference function. By default, a random client will be choosen. The client which the package uses does have impact on the data it can receive. If you have application restrictions enabled for your api key, you need to set a client manually.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

ytstream.setApiKey(`My Secret api key`); // Only sets the api key (not required)
ytstream.setPreference('api', 'ANDROID'); // Tells the package to use the api and use a android client for requests
...
ytstream.setPreference('scrape'); // Tells the package to use the scrape methods instead of the api, even if an api key has been provided

Downloading

You can download a video by using the stream function. The stream function has two parameters; the info or url parameter and the options parameter. The options parameter is not required. The first parameter must include the video url or the info that has been received from the info function. The stream function will return a Promise. The Promise will be fullfilled if the video was successfully downloaded. If there was an error, the Promise will be rejected with the error. Once the Promise gets fullfilled it will return the Stream class. The most important properties in the Stream class are:

• stream: The Readable stream
• url: The url to download the video or song
• video_url: The YouTube video url

Optional options are:

• type: If your download preference is video or audio. If one of the types does not exists, it will download the other download type.
• quality: The quality of the video (high or low)
• highWaterMark: The highWaterMark for the Readable stream
• download: A boolean which defines whether to automatically download and push the chunks in the Readable stream (stream property of the Stream class) the video or not (default true)

Warning: By setting the download option to false, it is not guaranteed that the provided url contains the requested video/audio. Make sure to check for any possible location headers when making a request to this url.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');
const fs = require('fs');

(async () => {
    const stream = await ytstream.stream(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ`, {
        quality: 'high',
        type: 'audio',
        highWaterMark: 1048576 * 32,
        download: true
    });
    stream.stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('some_song.mp3'));
    console.log(stream.video_url);
    console.log(stream.url);
})();

Searching video's

YT-Stream also has a search function. You can easily search a song by using the search function. The search function has one parameter which is the query to search. The query parameter is required. The search function will return a Promise which will be fullfilled if there were no errors while trying to search. The Promise will return an Array with the amount of video's that were found. The items in the Array are the video's with the Video class. The most important properties of the Video class are:

• url: The video url
• id: The id of the video
• author: The author of the video
• title: The title of the video

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

(async () => {
    const results = await ytstream.search(`Rick Astley Never Gonna Give You Up`);

    console.log(results[0].url); // Output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    console.log(results[0].id); // Output: dQw4w9WgXcQ
    console.log(results[0].author); // Output: Rick Astley
    console.log(results[0].title); // Output: Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video)
})();

Get video info

You can also get information about a specific video. You can use the info function to do this. The info function has one parameter which is the url and is required. The info function will return a Promise which will be fullfilled when the info successfully was received. The Promise returns the YouTubeData class. The most important properties of the YouTubeData class are:

• url: The video url
• id: The id of the video
• author: The author of the video
• title: The title of the video
• uploaded: When the video was uploaded
• description: An object of descriptions (short or full)
• duration: The duration of the video in seconds

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

(async () => {
    const info = await ytstream.getInfo(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ`);

    console.log(info.url); // Output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    console.log(info.id); // Output: dQw4w9WgXcQ
    console.log(info.author); // Output: Rick Astley
    console.log(info.title); // Output: Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video)
    console.log(info.uploaded); // Output: 2009-10-24
    console.log(info.description); // Output: 'The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up”...'
    console.log(info.duration); // Output: 212000
})();

Get playlist info

You can get information about a specific playlist. You can use the getPlaylist function for this. The getPlaylist function requires one parameter which is the url. The getPlaylist function returns Promise which will be fullfilled when the playlist information has successfully been received. The Promise returns the Playlist class. The most important properties of the Playlist class are:

• videos: An Array of all the video's (the PlaylistVideo class is used for the video's)
• title: The title of the playlist
• author: The author of the playlist

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

(async () => {
    const info = await ytstream.getPlaylist(`https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-dXGDrKWvZMVKjPtGaIqqI5eg3U7KSEA`);

    console.log(info.videos); // Output: [Array]
    console.log(info.title); // Output: Some playlist title
    console.log(info.author); // Output: Some playlist author
})();

Setting a user agent

You can easily set a user agent by changing the userAgent property to a user agent.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

ytstream.userAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:94.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/94.0";

Setting custom headers

It is possible to add custom headers which will be added to each request made. This is possible by using the setGlobalHeaders function.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

ytstream.setGlobalHeaders({
    'Accept-Language': 'en-US,en;q=0.5'
});

Agent and cookies

By default, the YT-Stream package automatically handles all cookies. This is being handled by a custom agent. The settings of this agent and the cookies can be configured. This can be done by creating a new instance of the YTStreamAgent and changing the settings of this. The first argument of the constructor should eiither contain an array of cookies you'd like to add inside the request or a string which represents the file containing the cookies which will be used and synced. If you don't want to add any cookies, you can use an empty array here. The second argument of the constructor should contain an object with the custom settings for the agent. This custom agent can then be set by using the setGlobalAgent function.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

const agent = new ytstream.YTStreamAgent([{
    key: 'SOCS',
    value: 'CAI',
    domain: 'youtube.com',
    expires: 'Infinity',
    sameSite: 'lax',
    httpOnly: false,
    hostOnly: false,
    secure: true,
    path: '/'
}], {
    localAddress: '127.0.0.1',
    keepAlive: true,
    keepAliveMsecs: 5e3
});

ytstream.setGlobalAgent(agent);

The cookies can afterwards be removed by using the removeCookies function of the YTStreamAgent class. The removeCookies function provides one optional argument which should be a boolean. The boolean determines whether all cookies shall be removed (forced) or only the cookies which were cached from previous requests.

const agent = new ytstream.YTStreamAgent([{
    key: 'SOCS',
    value: 'CAI',
    domain: 'youtube.com',
    expires: 'Infinity',
    sameSite: 'lax',
    httpOnly: false,
    hostOnly: false,
    secure: true,
    path: '/'
}], {
    localAddress: '127.0.0.1',
    keepAlive: true,
    keepAliveMsecs: 5e3
});

agent.removeCookies(false) // Only removes cached cookies
agent.removeCookies(true) // Also removes manually set cookies inside the constructor

You can also sync the cookies with a file. The cookies inside this file will be imported and if YouTube sets new cookies or updates existing ones, these will be changed inside this file as well. You can use the syncFile function to synchronize a file containing the cookies. This file must be a json file and should contain an array with the cookies inside of it. The syncFile function requires one argument, which should be the path to the file. The path should either be absolute or relative from the root folder of the process. Otherwise the agent won't be able to find the file.

const path = require('path');

const agent = new ytstream.YTStreamAgent([], {
    localAddress: '127.0.0.1',
    keepAlive: true,
    keepAliveMsecs: 5e3
});

agent.syncFile(path.join(__dirname, `./cookies.json`)) // This is an absolute path which will always work
agent.syncFile(`./cookies.json`) // This is a relative path which will only work if the cookies.json file is inside the root folder of the process

Validate YouTube url

You can validate a YouTube url by using the validateURL function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to check whether it is a valid YouTube url or not.

Important: This also validates playlists, to only validate video's use the validateVideoURL function.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.validateURL('SomeString')) // Output: false
console.log(ytstream.validateURL('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ')); // Output: true

Validate YouTube video url

You can validate a YouTube video url by using the validateVideoURL function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to check whether it is a valid YouTube video url or not.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.validateVideoURL('SomeString')) // Output: false
console.log(ytstream.validateVideoURL('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ')); // Output: true

Validate YouTube video ID

You can validate a YouTube video ID by using the validateID function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to check whether it is a valid YouTube video ID or not.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.validateID('SomeString')) // Output: false
console.log(ytstream.validateID('dQw4w9WgXcQ')); // Output: true

Validate YouTube playlist url

You can validate a YouTube playlist url by using the validatePlaylistURL function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to check whether it is a valid YouTube playlist url or not.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.validatePlaylistURL('SomeString')) // Output: false
console.log(ytstream.validatePlaylistURL('https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk-dXGDrKWvZMVKjPtGaIqqI5eg3U7KSEA')); // Output: true

Validate YouTube playlist ID

You can validate a YouTube playlist ID by using the validatePlaylistID function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to check whether it is a valid YouTube playlist ID or not.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.validatePlaylistID('SomeString')) // Output: false
console.log(ytstream.validatePlaylistID('PLk-dXGDrKWvZMVKjPtGaIqqI5eg3U7KSEA')); // Output: true

Get YouTube ID

You can easily convert a YouTube url to a YouTube ID by using the getID function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to get the YouTube ID from. If the string is an invalid YouTube url, the function will return undefined.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.getID('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ')); // Output: dQw4w9WgXcQ

Get video url

You can easily convert a YouTube video ID to a YouTube video url by using the getURL function. The function requires one parameter which is the string to get the YouTube video url from. If the string is an invalid YouTube video ID, the function will return undefined.

const ytstream = require('yt-stream');

console.log(ytstream.getURL('dQw4w9WgXcQ')); // Output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ