Download YouTube Video using PHP

By: CodexWorld | In: PHP | Last Updated: Dec 19, 2022

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing platform that allows the user to upload, view, and share videos online. The videos are watched online and YouTube did not provide any download option for offline uses. If you want to access the raw file of the YouTube video, the video needs to be downloaded. In this tutorial, we will show you how to download videos from YouTube using PHP.

The YouTube video downloader script helps to download the YouTube video for offline uses. If your web application needs to access the raw video file from YouTube, downloader script is the easiest way to download YouTube video in PHP.

YouTube Video Downloader Library (YouTubeDownloader.class.php)

The YouTubeDownloader class helps to retrieve video info and file URL from YouTube video using PHP. This class used the following helper methods to get the YouTube video download link.

setUrl() – Set the video file URL.
getVideoInfo() – Get the video information using file_get_contents() method in PHP.
extractVideoId() – Get video ID from YouTube video URL.
getDownloader() – Get the downloader object if pattern matches otherwise return false.
getVideoDownloadLink() – Get the video download URL with video info (itag, quality, title, mime, and format).
hasVideo() – Validate the YouTube video URL.

<?php 
/** 
 * CodexWorld 
 * 
 * This Downloader class helps to download youtube video. 
 * 
 * @class       YouTubeDownloader 
 * @author      CodexWorld 
 * @link        http://www.codexworld.com 
 * @license     http://www.codexworld.com/license 
 */ 
class YouTubeDownloader { 
    /* 
     * Video Id for the given url 
     */ 
    private $video_id; 
      
    /* 
     * Video title for the given video 
     */ 
    private $video_title; 
      
    /* 
     * Full URL of the video 
     */ 
    private $video_url; 
     
    /* 
     * store the url pattern and corresponding downloader object 
     * @var array 
     */ 
    private $link_pattern; 
     
    public function __construct(){ 
        $this->link_pattern = "/^(?:http(?:s)?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:m\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:(?:watch)?\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed)\/))([^\?&\"'>]+)/"; 
    } 
     
    /* 
     * Set the url 
     * @param string 
     */ 
    public function setUrl($url){ 
        $this->video_url = $url; 
    } 
     
    /* 
     * Get the video information 
     * return string 
     */ 
    private function getVideoInfo(){ 
        return file_get_contents("https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=".$this->extractVideoId($this->video_url)."&cpn=CouQulsSRICzWn5E&eurl&el=adunit"); 
    } 
      
    /* 
     * Get video Id 
     * @param string 
     * return string 
     */ 
    private function extractVideoId($video_url){ 
        //parse the url 
        $parsed_url = parse_url($video_url); 
        if($parsed_url["path"] == "youtube.com/watch"){ 
            $this->video_url = "https://www.".$video_url; 
        }elseif($parsed_url["path"] == "www.youtube.com/watch"){ 
            $this->video_url = "https://".$video_url; 
        } 
         
        if(isset($parsed_url["query"])){ 
            $query_string = $parsed_url["query"]; 
            //parse the string separated by '&' to array 
            parse_str($query_string, $query_arr); 
            if(isset($query_arr["v"])){ 
                return $query_arr["v"]; 
            } 
        }    
    } 
     
    /* 
     * Get the downloader object if pattern matches else return false 
     * @param string 
     * return object or bool 
     *  
     */ 
    public function getDownloader($url){ 
        /* 
         * check the pattern match with the given video url 
         */ 
        if(preg_match($this->link_pattern, $url)){ 
            return $this; 
        } 
        return false; 
    } 
      
    /* 
     * Get the video download link 
     * return array 
     */ 
    public function getVideoDownloadLink(){ 
        //parse the string separated by '&' to array 
        parse_str($this->getVideoInfo(), $data); 
        $videoData = json_decode($data['player_response'], true); 
        $videoDetails = $videoData['videoDetails']; 
        $streamingData = $videoData['streamingData']; 
        $streamingDataFormats = $streamingData['formats']; 
          
        //set video title 
        $this->video_title = $videoDetails["title"]; 
          
        //Get the youtube root link that contains video information 
        $final_stream_map_arr = array(); 
          
        //Create array containing the detail of video  
        foreach($streamingDataFormats as $stream){ 
            $stream_data = $stream; 
            $stream_data["title"] = $this->video_title; 
            $stream_data["mime"] = $stream_data["mimeType"]; 
            $mime_type = explode(";", $stream_data["mime"]); 
            $stream_data["mime"] = $mime_type[0]; 
            $start = stripos($mime_type[0], "/"); 
            $format = ltrim(substr($mime_type[0], $start), "/"); 
            $stream_data["format"] = $format; 
            unset($stream_data["mimeType"]); 
            $final_stream_map_arr [] = $stream_data;          
        } 
        return $final_stream_map_arr; 
    } 
      
    /* 
     * Validate the given video url 
     * return bool 
     */ 
    public function hasVideo(){ 
        $valid = true; 
        parse_str($this->getVideoInfo(), $data); 
        if($data["status"] == "fail"){ 
            $valid = false; 
        }  
        return $valid; 
    } 
      
}

Upload Video to YouTube using PHP