YouTube archiving made simple.

Installation · Managing your Archive · Viewing your Archive

Yark lets you continuously archive all videos and metadata for YouTube channels and playlists. You can also view your archive as a seamless offline website ✨

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

$ pip3 install yark

Once you've installed Yark, think of a name for your archive (e.g., foobar) and copy the channel/playlist 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 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.

Yark is currently going through a slow and steady rewrite for improved code quality, with a new GUI also in the works. It will be a while until any new features come through, as the new GUI is blocked by an external issue and the rewrite needs time for polish.

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!