YouTube Downloader MCP server

yt-dlp-mcp is an MCP server implementation that integrates with yt-dlp, providing video and audio content download capabilities from various platforms (YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) for Large Language Models. It allows LLMs to download subtitles, videos, and audio files through the Model Context Protocol.

Features

• Subtitles: Download subtitles in SRT format for LLMs to read
• Video Download: Save videos to your Downloads folder with resolution control
• Audio Download: Save audios to your Downloads folder
• Privacy-Focused: Direct download without tracking
• MCP Integration: Works with Dive and other MCP-compatible LLMs

Installation

Prerequisites

Install yt-dlp based on your operating system:

# Windows
winget install yt-dlp

# macOS
brew install yt-dlp

# Linux
pip install yt-dlp

With Dive Desktop

1. Click "+ Add MCP Server" in Dive Desktop
2. Copy and paste this configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yt-dlp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@kevinwatt/yt-dlp-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

3. Click "Save" to install the MCP server

Manual Start

If needed, start the server manually:

npx @kevinwatt/yt-dlp-mcp

Available Tools

List Subtitle Languages

Lists all available subtitle languages and their formats for a video:

Input: 
- url (string, required): URL of the video

Download Video Subtitles

Downloads video subtitles in any available format:

Inputs:
- url (string, required): URL of the video
- language (string, optional): Language code (e.g., 'en', 'zh-Hant', 'ja'). Defaults to 'en'

Download Video

Downloads video to user's Downloads folder:

Inputs:
- url (string, required): URL of the video
- resolution (string, optional): Video resolution ('480p', '720p', '1080p', 'best'). Defaults to '720p'

Download Audio

Downloads audio in best available quality:

Input:
- url (string, required): URL of the video

Download Transcript

Downloads and cleans video subtitles to produce a plain text transcript:

Inputs:
- url (string, required): URL of the video
- language (string, optional): Language code (e.g., 'en', 'zh-Hant', 'ja'). Defaults to 'en'

Usage Examples

You can ask your LLM to perform the following actions:

• "List available subtitles for this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "Download a video from facebook: https://facebook.com/..."
• "Download Chinese subtitles from this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "Download this video in 1080p: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "Download audio from this YouTube video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "Get a clean transcript of this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "Download Spanish transcript from this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

System Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• yt-dlp in system PATH
• MCP-compatible LLM service

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "yt-dlp" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@kevinwatt/yt-dlp-mcp"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "yt-dlp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@kevinwatt/yt-dlp-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "yt-dlp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@kevinwatt/yt-dlp-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect