ytsurf is a shell-based frontend for finding and consuming YouTube content. It combines tools including yt-dlp, mpv, fzf, and chafa to provide a terminal workflow for choosing media and deciding what to do with it.
The program accepts a search query on the command line or starts an interactive session when launched without arguments. Defaults are stored in a configuration file, with command-line options taking precedence for individual sessions.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Search YouTube with a configurable limit on the number of returned results.
- Play selected videos or use an audio-only mode for listening.
- Download video or audio to a chosen destination directory.
- Select formats and resolutions interactively before playback or downloading.
- Add items to a queue and play queued content.
- Open saved playlists for subsequent listening or viewing sessions.
- Subscribe to channels locally, remove subscriptions, and import existing YouTube subscriptions.
- Browse a feed of videos from subscribed channels.
- Keep viewing history and reopen previously selected content.
- Use Syncplay integration to watch videos together with other viewers.
- Choose fzf menus or optional rofi and sentaku interfaces.
- Copy a selected video URL to the clipboard or display it for use elsewhere.
- Open the configuration file from the application and set defaults such as audio-only mode, search limits, and download location.
Website: github.com/Stan-breaks/ytsurf
Support:
Developer: Stanley
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Related Software
| Console-Based YouTube Tools | |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp | Fork of youtube-dl offering new features |
| You-Get | Downloader that scrapes the web |
| Lux | Download library and CLI tool |
| yewtube | Terminal based YouTube player and downloader |
| YouTube TUI | Lightweight and user friendly TUI for browsing YouTube |
| Tizonia | Cloud music player for the Linux terminal |
| pipe-viewer | Lightweight YouTube client with CLI and GUI |
| yt-x | Browse YouTube from the terminal |
| pytubefix | Library and CLI for downloading YouTube videos |
| ytsurf | Clean and distraction-free |
| YTerMusic | Aims to be as fast and simple as possible |
| xytz | TUI frontend for yt-dlp |
| ytm-player | Terminal-based client for YouTube Music |
| tuitube | TUI to download videos |
| GopherTube | Terminal YouTube client for searching and watching videos |
| youtube-dl | Download videos from YouTube and many other sites. Extremely versatile |
| ytcc | Keep track of your favorite playlists on YouTube |
| Rataplay | TUI to search, play and download videos |
| MPS-YouTube | Terminal based YouTube player and downloader |
| GoMusic | Download and stream music from YouTube |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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