Install & setup

How to Update yt-dlp

How to update yt-dlp to the latest version — yt-dlp -U for the binary, pip upgrade, package managers, and nightly builds when a site breaks.

Updated 2026-06-13

Sites change their players constantly, which is why yt-dlp ships frequent updates. If a download suddenly fails, updating is the first thing to try.

If you installed the binary (Windows .exe / Linux / macOS binary)

yt-dlp -U
# or the explicit form
yt-dlp --update

This replaces yt-dlp in place with the latest stable release.

python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp

# Windows
winget upgrade yt-dlp.yt-dlp
scoop update yt-dlp
choco upgrade yt-dlp
# macOS
brew upgrade yt-dlp

Fixes for newly broken sites often land in the nightly channel before the next stable release:

yt-dlp --update-to nightly

Switch back any time with yt-dlp --update-to stable.

The yt-dlp app updates its engine automatically in the background, so you rarely have to think about this.

yt-dlp --version

yt-dlp -U says 'not an executable file' — why?+

Self-update only works for binary installs. If you installed via pip, update with pip; if via a package manager, use that manager's upgrade command.

How often should I update yt-dlp?+

Update whenever a download fails, and otherwise every few weeks. Stable releases come out regularly.

What's the difference between stable and nightly?+

Nightly is built from the latest code and gets site fixes first; stable is more tested. Use nightly when stable can't download a site yet.