yoinks
yoink any video. paste. yoink. done.
Download videos from YouTube, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and 1,800+ other sites — right from your terminal. Paste a url, pick a resolution (or audio-only mp3), done. No popups, no fake download buttons, no sketchy redirects.
Install
npm install -g yoinks
Or try it without installing anything:
npx yoinks
Requires Node 18+. Everything else (yt-dlp, ffmpeg) is fetched or bundled automatically.
Usage
$ yoinks https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ # straight to the format picker $ yoinks # prompts for a url $ yoinks --theme light # force the light palette
yoinks takes over the terminal (full-screen, centered — and restores your
scrollback on exit). Pick a format with ↑/↓ (or j/k, or number keys) and
hit enter. esc goes back, ^c quits. Or just use the mouse — the yoink
button, the format list and the footer hints are all clickable, and
clicking the logo takes you back home. Files are saved to ~/Downloads,
and the file path is printed to your terminal when you're done.
The default auto theme uses your terminal's own foreground and background,
so it follows light and dark terminal themes without guessing. Press ^t or
click the theme control in the footer to cycle through auto, light, and
dark for the current session. Use --theme auto, --theme light, or
--theme dark to choose the starting theme for one launch.
How it works
- Powered by yt-dlp. On first run,
yoinks downloads the standalone yt-dlp binary to
~/.yoinks/bin— no Python required. If you already have yt-dlp installed, it uses yours. - ffmpeg (needed for merging high-res streams and mp3 extraction) is found
on your PATH, with
ffmpeg-staticas a bundled fallback. - The UI is Ink — React for the terminal.
Development
npm install npm run build # bundle to dist/ with tsup npm run dev # rebuild on change node dist/cli.js <url> npm run typecheck
To try it as a global command without publishing: npm link, then run
yoinks anywhere.
Roadmap
-
--best/--mp3flags to skip the picker (scriptable mode) -
-o <dir>to choose the output folder - Playlist / thread-with-multiple-videos support
- Clipboard detection: launch bare and auto-suggest the url you copied
- Self-update for the bundled yt-dlp binary (
yt-dlp -U) - Publish to npm (
npm i -g yoinks/npx yoinks) -
curl yoinks.sh | shinstaller
A note on fair use
yoinks is a personal-archiving tool. Downloading content may violate a platform's terms of service — only download what you have the right to keep, and be excellent to creators.