streamlink - Man Page

A URL to attempt to extract streams from.

Usually, the protocol of http(s) URLs can be omitted (https://), depending on the implementation of the plugin being used.

Alternatively, the URL can also be specified by using the --url option.

Stream to play.

Use best or worst for selecting the highest or lowest available quality.

Fallback streams can be specified by using a comma-separated list:

"720p,480p,best"

If no stream is specified and --default-stream is not used, then a list of available streams will be printed.

Show this help message and exit.

Show version number and exit.

Print a list of all currently installed plugins.

Load plugins from this directory.

Can be set multiple times to load plugins from multiple directories.

Load plugins from a list of comma-separated directories. (deprecated)

Check if Streamlink has a plugin that can handle the specified URL.

Returns status code 1 for false and 0 for true.

Useful for external scripting.

Same as --can-handle-url but without following redirects when looking up the URL.

Load options from this config file.

Can be repeated to load multiple files, in which case the options are merged on top of each other where the last config has highest priority.

Disable loading any default or custom config files.

Set the log message threshold.

Valid levels are, in order of increasing verbosity:

none, critical, error, warning, info, debug, trace, all

Default is: "info".

Set a custom logging format.

See the Python standard library's logging.Formatter docs for more information about the logging format and the available LogRecord attributes. Streamlink's formatter uses the curly brace style.

The default format depends on the chosen log level (may include the asctime attribute).

Default is: "[{name}][{levelname}] {message}".

Set a custom logging date format.

This formats the LogRecord's asctime attribute via strftime().

The default date format depends on the chosen log level (may include fractions).

Default is: "%H:%M:%S".

Append log output to FILE instead of writing to stdout/stderr.

User prompts and download progress won't be written to FILE.

A value of - (dash) will set the file name to an ISO8601-like string and will choose the following default log directories.

Windows:

%TEMP%\streamlink\logs

macOS:

${HOME}/Library/Logs/streamlink

Linux/BSD:

${XDG_STATE_HOME:-${HOME}/.local/state}/streamlink/logs

Hide all log output.

Alias for --loglevel none.

Output JSON representations instead of the normal text output.

Useful for external scripting.

Enable or disable the automatic check for a new version of Streamlink.

Default is: "no".

Runs a version check and exits.

The preferred locale setting, for selecting the preferred subtitle and audio language.

The locale is formatted as [language_code]_[country_code], eg. en_US or es_ES.

Default is: system locale.

Set the network interface.

Resolve address names to IPv4 only. This option overrides --ipv6.

Resolve address names to IPv6 only. This option overrides --ipv4.

The player executable that will be launched (unless a different output method was chosen).

Either set an absolute or relative path to the player executable, or just set the executable's name if it can be resolved from the paths of the system's PATH environment variable.

In addition to setting the player executable path, custom player arguments can be set via --player-args.

NOTE:

Default is: VLC player, if available.

This option allows the arguments which are used to launch the player process to be customized.

The value can contain formatting variables surrounded by curly braces, { and }. Curly brace characters can be escaped by doubling, e.g. {{ and }}.

Available formatting variables:

{playerinput}

This is the input argument that the player will receive. For standard input (stdin), it is - (dash), but it can also be a file path or URL, depending on the options used. If unset, then the player input argument will be appended to the parsed player arguments list.

{playertitleargs}

The automatically generated player title arguments, if a supported player was found. See --title for more. If unset, automatically generated player title arguments will be prepended to the parsed player arguments list.

Example:

streamlink -p vlc -a "--play-and-exit --no-one-instance" <url> [stream]

Default is: "".

Add an additional environment variable to the spawned player process, in addition to the ones inherited from the Streamlink/Python parent process. This allows setting player environment variables in config files.

Can be repeated to add multiple environment variables.

Allow the player to display its console output.

Make the player read the stream through a named pipe instead of the stdin pipe.

Make the player read the stream through HTTP instead of the stdin pipe.

Make the player read the stream through HTTP, but unlike --player-http it will continuously try to open the stream if the player requests it.

This makes it possible to handle stream disconnects if your player is capable of reconnecting to a HTTP stream. This is usually done by setting your player to a "repeat mode".

Serve stream data through HTTP without running any player. This is useful to allow external devices like smartphones or streaming boxes to watch streams they wouldn't be able to otherwise.

The default behavior is similar to the --player-continuous-http option, but no player program will be started, and the server will listen on all available connections instead of just in the local (loopback) interface.

See --player-external-http-interface for choosing a specific network interface, and see --player-external-http-port for choosing a non-randomized port.

Optionally, the --player-external-http-continuous option allows for disabling the continuous run-mode, so that Streamlink will stop when the stream ends.

The URLs that can be used to access the stream will be printed to the console, and the server can be interrupted using CTRL-C.

Set the run-mode of --player-external-http to continuous or non-continuous.

In the continuous run-mode, Streamlink will keep running after the stream has ended and will wait for the next HTTP request being made unless it gets shut down via CTRL-C.

If set to non-continuous, Streamlink will stop once the stream has ended.

Default is: true.

The network interface on which the HTTP server will be listening on. If unset or set to 0.0.0.0, all available interfaces will be bound.

A fixed port to use for the external HTTP server if that mode is enabled. Omit or set to 0 to use a random high ( >1024) port.

A comma-delimited list of stream types to pass to the player as a URL to let it handle the transport of the stream instead.

Stream types that can be converted into a playable URL are:

• hls
• http

Make sure your player can handle the stream type when using this.

By default Streamlink will close the player when the stream ends. This is to avoid "dead" GUI players lingering after a stream ends.

It does however have the side-effect of sometimes closing a player before it has played back all of its cached data.

This option will instead let the player decide when to exit.

Change the title of the video player's window.

Please see the "Metadata variables" section of Streamlink's CLI documentation for all available metadata variables, as well as the "Plugins" section for the list of metadata variables defined in each plugin.

This option is only supported for the following players: mpv, potplayer, vlc

VLC specific information:

VLC does support special formatting variables on its own: https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Format_String/

These variables are accessible in the --title option by adding a backslash in front of the dollar sign which VLC uses as its formatting character.

For example, to put the current date in your VLC window title, the string \$A could be inserted inside the --title string.

Example:

streamlink -p mpv --title "{author} - {category} - {title}" <URL> [STREAM]

Write stream data to stdout instead of playing it in the --player.

Write stream data to FILENAME instead of playing it in the --player. If FILENAME is set to - (dash), then the stream data will be written to stdout, similar to the --stdout argument.

Non-existent directories and subdirectories will be created if they do not exist, if filesystem permissions allow.

Unless --force is set, Streamlink will ask for confirmation before writing if FILENAME already exists.

Please see the "Metadata variables" section of Streamlink's CLI documentation for all available metadata variables, as well as the "Plugins" section for the list of metadata variables defined in each plugin.

Unsupported characters in substituted variables will be replaced with an underscore.

Example:

streamlink --output "~/recordings/{author}/{category}/{id}-{time:%Y%m%d%H%M%S}.ts" <URL> [STREAM]

Write stream data to FILENAME while at the same time allowing playback in the --player or writing it to --stdout. If FILENAME is set to - (dash), then the stream data will be written to stdout, similar to the --stdout argument, while still opening the player.

Non-existent directories and subdirectories will be created if they do not exist, if filesystem permissions allow.

Unless --force is set, Streamlink will ask for confirmation before writing if FILENAME already exists.

Please see the "Metadata variables" section of Streamlink's CLI documentation for all available metadata variables, as well as the "Plugins" section for the list of metadata variables defined in each plugin.

Unsupported characters in substituted variables will be replaced with an underscore.

Example:

streamlink --record "~/recordings/{author}/{category}/{id}-{time:%Y%m%d%H%M%S}.ts" <URL> [STREAM]

Deprecated in favor of --stdout --record=FILENAME.

The rules used to make formatting variables filesystem-safe are chosen automatically according to the type of system in use. This overrides the automatic detection.

Intended for use when Streamlink is running on a UNIX-like OS but writing to Windows filesystems such as NTFS; USB devices using VFAT or exFAT; CIFS shares that are enforcing Windows filename limitations, etc.

These characters are replaced with an underscore for the rules in use:

• POSIX: \x00-\x1F /
• Windows: \x00-\x1F \x7F " * / : < > ? \ |

When using --output or --record, always write to file even if it already exists (overwrite).

When using --output or --record, show or hide the download progress bar, or force it if there's no terminal.

Default is: yes.

Deprecated in favor of --progress=force.

A URL to attempt to extract streams from.

Usually, the protocol of http(s) URLs can be omitted (https://), depending on the implementation of the plugin being used.

This is an alternative to setting the URL using a positional argument and can be useful if set in a config file.

Stream to play.

Use best or worst for selecting the highest or lowest available quality.

Fallback streams can be specified by using a comma-separated list:

"720p,480p,best"

This is an alternative to setting the stream using a positional argument and can be useful if set in a config file.

If possible, translate the resolved stream to a URL and print it.

Retry fetching the list of available streams until streams are found while waiting DELAY second(s) between each attempt. If unset, only one attempt will be made to fetch the list of streams available.

The number of fetch retry attempts can be capped with --retry-max.

When using --retry-streams, stop retrying the fetch after COUNT retry attempt(s). Fetch will retry infinitely if COUNT is zero or unset.

If --retry-max is set without setting --retry-streams, the delay between retries will default to 1 second.

After a successful fetch, try ATTEMPTS time(s) to open the stream until giving up.

Default is: 1.

A comma-delimited list of stream types to allow.

The order will be used to separate streams when there are multiple streams with the same name but different stream types. Any stream type not listed will be omitted from the available streams list.  An * (asterisk) can be used as a wildcard to match any other type of stream, eg. muxed-stream.

Default is: "hls,http,*".

Fine tune the best and worst stream name synonyms by excluding unwanted streams.

If all of the available streams get excluded, best and worst will become inaccessible and new special stream synonyms best-unfiltered and worst-unfiltered can be used as a fallback selection method.

Uses a filter expression in the format:

[operator]<value>

Valid operators are >, >=, < and <=. If no operator is specified then equality is tested.

For example this will exclude streams ranked higher than "480p":

--stream-sorting-excludes ">480p"

Multiple filters can be used by separating each expression with a comma.

For example this will exclude streams from two quality types:

--stream-sorting-excludes ">480p,>medium"

The maximum size of the ringbuffer.

Mebibytes or kibibytes (base 2) can be specified via the M or K suffix respectively.

The ringbuffer is used as a temporary storage between the stream and the player. This allows Streamlink to download the stream faster than the player which reads the data from the ringbuffer.

The smaller the size of the ringbuffer, the higher the chance of the player buffering if the download speed decreases, and the higher the size, the more data can be use as a storage to recover from volatile download speeds.

Most players have their own additional cache and will read the ringbuffer's content as soon as data is available. If the player stops reading data while playback is paused, Streamlink will continue to download the stream in the background as long as the ringbuffer doesn't get full.

Default is: "16M".

How many attempts should be done to download each segment before giving up.

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 3.

The size of the thread pool used to download segments. Minimum value is 1 and maximum is 10.

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 1.

Segment connect and read timeout.

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 10.0.

Timeout for reading data from streams.

This applies to all different kinds of stream types, such as DASH, HLS, HTTP, etc.

Default is: 60.0.

Automatically mux available subtitles into the output stream.

Needs to be supported by the used plugin.

Number of segments from the live stream's current live position to begin streaming. The size or length of each segment is determined by the streaming provider.

Lower values will decrease the latency, but will also increase the chance of buffering, as there is less time for Streamlink to download segments and write their data to the output buffer. The number of parallel segment downloads can be set with --stream-segment-threads and the HLS playlist reload time to fetch and queue new segments can be overridden with --hls-playlist-reload-time.

Default is: 3.

NOTE:

Immediately write segment data into output buffer while downloading.

Max number of attempts when reloading the HLS playlist before giving up.

Default is: 3.

Set a custom HLS playlist reload time value, either in seconds or by using one of the following keywords:

• segment: The duration of the last segment in the current playlist
• live-edge: The sum of segment durations of the live edge value minus one
• default: The playlist's target duration metadata

Default is: default.

The multiplication factor of the HLS playlist's target duration after which the stream will be stopped early if no new segments were queued after refreshing the playlist (multiple times). The target duration defines the maximum duration a single segment can have, meaning new segments must be available during this time frame, otherwise playback issues can occur.

The intention of this queue threshold is to be able to stop early when the end of a stream doesn't get announced by the server, so Streamlink doesn't have to wait until a read-timeout occurs. See --stream-timeout.

Set to 0 to disable.

Default is: 3.

A comma-delimited list of segment names that will get filtered out.

Example: --hls-segment-ignore-names 000,001,002

This will ignore every segment that ends with 000.ts, 001.ts and 002.ts

Default is: None.

Override the segment encryption key URIs for encrypted streams.

The value can be templated using the following variables, which will be replaced with their respective part from the source segment URI:

{url} {scheme} {netloc} {path} {query}

Examples:

--hls-segment-key-uri "https://example.com/hls/encryption_key"
--hls-segment-key-uri "{scheme}://1.2.3.4{path}{query}"
--hls-segment-key-uri "{scheme}://{netloc}/custom/path/to/key"

Default is: None.

Selects a specific audio source or sources, by language code or name, when multiple audio sources are available. Can be * (asterisk) to download all audio sources.

Examples:

--hls-audio-select "English,German"
--hls-audio-select "en,de"
--hls-audio-select "*"

NOTE:

This is only useful in special circumstances where the regular locale option fails, such as when multiple sources of the same language exists.

Amount of time to skip from the beginning of the stream. For live streams, this is a negative offset from the end of the stream (rewind).

Default is: 0.

Limit the playback duration, useful for watching segments of a stream. The actual duration may be slightly longer, as it is rounded to the nearest HLS segment.

Default is: unlimited.

Skip to the beginning of a live stream, or as far back as possible.

Max number of attempts when reloading the DASH manifest before giving up.

Default is: 3.

FFMPEG is used to access or mux separate video and audio streams. You can specify the location of the ffmpeg executable if it is not in your PATH.

Example: --ffmpeg-ffmpeg "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg"

Disable FFmpeg validation and version logging.

Write the console output from ffmpeg to the console.

Path to write the output from the ffmpeg console.

Change FFmpeg's -loglevel value to LOGLEVEL.

Unless --ffmpeg-verbose or --ffmpeg-verbose-path is set, changing the log level won't have any effect.

Default is: "info".

When muxing streams, set the output format to OUTFORMAT.

Default is: "matroska".

Example: --ffmpeg-fout "mpegts"

When muxing streams, transcode the video to CODEC.

Default is: "copy".

Example: --ffmpeg-video-transcode "h264"

When muxing streams, transcode the audio to CODEC.

Default is: "copy".

Example: --ffmpeg-audio-transcode "aac"

Forces the -copyts ffmpeg option and does not remove the initial start time offset value.

Enable the -start_at_zero ffmpeg option when using --ffmpeg-copyts.

A HTTP proxy to use for all HTTP and HTTPS requests, including WebSocket connections.

Example: --http-proxy "http://hostname:port/"

A cookie to add to each HTTP request.

Can be repeated to add multiple cookies.

A header to add to each HTTP request.

Can be repeated to add multiple headers.

A query parameter to add to each HTTP request.

Can be repeated to add multiple query parameters.

Ignore HTTP settings set in the environment such as environment variables (HTTP_PROXY, etc) or ~/.netrc authentication.

Don't attempt to verify SSL certificates.

Usually a bad idea, only use this if you know what you're doing.

Disable Diffie Hellman key exchange

Usually a bad idea, only use this if you know what you're doing.

SSL certificate to use.

Expects a .pem file.

SSL certificate to use.

Expects a .crt and a .key file.

General timeout used by all HTTP requests except the ones covered by other options.

Default is: 20.0.

Enable or disable support for Streamlink's webbrowser API.

Streamlink's webbrowser API allows plugins which implement it to launch a web browser and extract data from websites which they otherwise couldn't do via the regular HTTP session in Python due to specific JavaScript restrictions.

The web browser is run isolated and in a clean environment without access to regular user data.

Streamlink currently only supports Chromium-based web browsers using the Chrome Devtools Protocol (CDP). This includes Chromium itself, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and others, but full support for third party Chromium forks is not guaranteed. If you encounter any issues, please try Chromium or Google Chrome instead.

Default is: true.

Path to the web browser's executable.

By default, it is looked up automatically according to the rules of the used webbrowser API implementation. This usually involves a list of known executable names and fallback paths on all supported operating systems.

The maximum amount of time which the web browser can take to launch and execute.

Host for the web browser's inter-process communication interface (CDP specific).

Default is: 127.0.0.1.

Port for the web browser's inter-process communication interface (CDP specific).

Tries to find a free port by default.

The maximum amount of time for waiting on a single CDP command response.

Whether to launch the web browser in headless mode or not. When enabled, it stays completely hidden and doesn't require a desktop environment to run.

Please be aware that headless mode might be blocked by websites which implement bot detections.

Default is: false.

The username used to register with afreecatv.com.

A afreecatv.com account password to use with --afreeca-username.

Purge cached AfreecaTV credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

The password for the stream.

The username used to register with bbc.co.uk.

A bbc.co.uk account password to use with --bbciplayer-username.

Prefer HD streams over local SD streams, some live programmes may not be broadcast in HD.

The username used to register with Clubbing TV.

A Clubbing TV account password to use with --clubbingtv-username.

The email or phone number associated with your Niconico account

The password of your Niconico account

Value of the user-session token.

Can be used as an alternative to providing a password.

Purge cached Niconico credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

Amount of time to skip from the beginning of a stream.

Default is: 0.

The email associated with your openrectv account, required to access any openrectv stream.

An openrectv account password to use with --openrectv-email.

The pixiv.net sessionid that's used in pixiv's PHPSESSID cookie.

The pixiv.net device token that's used in pixiv's device_token cookie.

Purge cached Pixiv credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

Select a co-host stream instead of the owner stream.

The email used to register with raiplay.it.

A raiplay.it account password to use with --raiplay-email.

Purge cached RaiPlay credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

A Steam account email address to access friends/private streams

A Steam account password to use with --steam-email.

Source URL where the iframe is located, only required for direct URLs of ott.streann.com

The email address used to register with tf1.fr.

A tf1.fr account password to use with --tf1-username.

Purge cached tf1.fr credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

Password for private Twitcasting streams.

Skip embedded advertisement segments at the beginning or during a stream. Will cause these segments to be missing from the output.

Enables low latency streaming by prefetching HLS segments. Sets --hls-segment-stream-data to true and --hls-live-edge to 2, if it is higher. Reducing --hls-live-edge to 1 will result in the lowest latency possible, but will most likely cause buffering.

In order to achieve true low latency streaming during playback, the player's caching/buffering settings will need to be adjusted and reduced to a value as low as possible, but still high enough to not cause any buffering. This depends on the stream's bitrate and the quality of the connection to Twitch's servers. Please refer to the player's own documentation for the required configuration. Player parameters can be set via --player-args.

NOTE:

A header to add to each Twitch API HTTP request.

Can be repeated to add multiple headers.

Useful for adding authentication data that can prevent ads. See the plugin-specific documentation for more information.

A parameter to add to the API request for acquiring the streaming access token.

Can be repeated to add multiple parameters.

Don't attempt requesting the streaming access token without a client-integrity token.

Purge cached Twitch client-integrity token and acquire a new one.

A password to access password protected UStream.tv channels.

Your USTV Now account username

Your USTV Now account password

The email associated with your WWE Network account, required to access any WWE Network stream.

A WWE Network account password to use with --wwenetwork-email.

The yupptv.com boxid that's used in the BoxId cookie.

The yupptv.com yuppflixtoken that's used in the YuppflixToken cookie.

Purge cached YuppTV credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

The email associated with your zattoo account, required to access any zattoo stream.

A zattoo account password to use with --zattoo-email.

Purge cached zattoo credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

A comma-delimited list of stream types which should be used.

The following types are allowed: dash, hls7

Default is: "dash".