Resume youtube-dl download for MP3s

Question

I am trying to download an entire playlist using youtube-dl, this way :

youtube-dl -citwx --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 320K <playlist>

I believe it extracts the audio without having to download the actual video.

The problem is that I want to be able to stop and resume this download, which is impossible using only these arguments. However, if I add the -k option, the program will download the original videos (which takes a lot longer), convert them, and keep the original files (which takes a lot more space).

Is there any way for me to resume such a transfer without having to download the actual video files?

Answer 1

Sounds to me like there is no way. If it takes just the audio, seems like it needs to be done in one go. Maybe try writing a script that takes the file path and url as arguments, and pass those into a youtube dl script, then when that's done also deletes the video file. takes more time that way, but the space issue is gone.

Answer 2

I found the answer while browsing the man page :

--download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the archive file. Record the IDs of all downloaded videos in it.

youtube-dl -citwx --download-archive progress.txt --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 320K <playlist> is the correct command.

Answer 3

A note, --title is deprecated. The correct command should be youtube-dl -ciwx -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --download-archive progress.txt --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 320K <playlist>