youtube-dl for iOS, with Pythonista and Shortcuts

Download a video (or its audio track) by sharing it to a shortcut

The shortcut calls a helper script run within Pythonista. This script passes the URL to youtube-dl to do the actual download. After the download completes, the file is opened in a share sheet where it may be copied to any app, such as VLC.

1. Install Pythonista

2. In Pythonista, install StaSH

3. In a StaSH console, install youtube-dl:

   $ pip install youtube-dl

4. and clone this repository (note: git is only available if StaSH is run in Python 2):

   $ cd
   $ git clone https://github.com/Roman2K/youtube-dl-ios

5. Install the shortcut: iCloud link

1. Share a video to Shortcuts and then youtube-dl-ios
2. The downloaded file opens in a share sheet: choose an app
3. (The temporary file is cleaned up)