ytdlp2STRM

• Youtube / Twitch / Crunchyroll etc. to STRM files
• Watch Youtube through Jellyfin or Emby
• Watch Twitch through Jellyfin or Emby
• Watch Crunchyroll through Jellyfin or Emby https://github.com/fe80Grau/ytdlp2STRM/issues/52

Prerequisite

• Python 3 https://www.python.org/downloads/
  • Tested with Python 3.10 and 3.11. Very new major/minor releases occasionally ship breaking changes against some of the Python dependencies; if you hit unexplained import or runtime errors, try Python 3.11.
  • On Windows make sure "Add Python to PATH" is checked during install.
• FFmpeg https://ffmpeg.org/ — must be available on the system PATH (ffmpeg -version from a terminal should work).
• yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp — must be available on the system PATH as a binary (yt-dlp --version must work from a terminal), because ytdlp2STRM calls it as an external process.
  • pip install -r requierments.txt installs the Python package, but on some systems the entry-point binary is not picked up on PATH. If that happens, install it as a binary instead:
    • Windows (PowerShell): winget install yt-dlp.yt-dlp
    • Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install yt-dlp or grab the release binary from the yt-dlp repo.
    • macOS: brew install yt-dlp.

Installation and usage

• To allocate ytdlp2STRM, I suggest using /opt/ in Linux or C:\ProgramData in Windows.

Linux

• The next steps have been tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. In terminal:

cd /opt && git clone https://github.com/fe80Grau/ytdlp2STRM.git

• Install requierments.txt

cd /opt/ytdlp2STRM && pip install -r requierments.txt

• Copy service file to system services folder

sudo cp config/ytdlp2strm.service /etc/systemd/system/ytdlp2strm.service

• Enable service

sudo systemctl enable ytdlp2strm.service

• Start service

sudo systemctl start ytdlp2strm.service

• Check it

sudo systemctl status ytdlp2strm.service

• Check GUI in browser

http://localhost:5000/

Windows

• The next steps have been tested on Windows 11 Pro 22H2. Using Powershell or Windows Terminal with Administrator privileges:

cd C:\ProgramData; git clone https://github.com/fe80Grau/ytdlp2STRM.git;

• Install requierments.txt

cd C:\ProgramData\ytdlp2STRM; pip install -r requierments.txt

• Create a task that is scheduled to run main.py at startup. If you plan to install ytdlp2STRM in a different folder than C:\ProgramData\ytdlp2STRM, edit ./config/MS-TASK-ytdlp2STRM.xml

schtasks.exe /create /tn "ytdlp2STRM" /xml C:\ProgramData\ytdlp2STRM\config\MS-TASK-ytdlp2STRM.xml

• Run task

schtasks.exe /run /tn "ytdlp2STRM"

• In case everything is working, these commands will return "Running"

(Get-ScheduledTask | Where TaskName -eq ytdlp2STRM ).State

• Check the GUI in the browser.

http://localhost:5000/

Docker

To deploy this as a Docker container, follow these steps in the ytdlp2STRM root folder.

• Build Docker image. The default host port is 5005, to change it edit Dockerfile and change the env value of DOCKER_PORT with the same port that you will configure in the docker run command.

docker build . -t "ytdlp2strm" 

• Create a volume to preserve data.

docker create --name ytdlp2strm-data ytdlp2strm 

• Run the container with volume and mount D:\media (host folder for accessing strm files, change it as you prefer) in /media (container folder).

docker run -p 5005:5000 --restart=always -d -v D:\media:/media --volumes-from ytdlp2strm-data --name ytdlp2STRM ytdlp2strm

• Check the GUI in the browser

http://localhost:5005/

Docker HUB

• https://hub.docker.com/r/fe80grau/ytdlp2strm

• • Run container. To persist strm files, you must configure a volume, that is, a directory on the host that points to the /media directory in the container. Also, the default env value of DOCKER_PORT is 5005, make sure to put 5005 as host port or re-declare the env value of DOCKER_PORT like I do in the following screenshot.

• Check the GUI in the browser

http://localhost:5001/

Docker compose YAML template

• Thank you INPoppoRTUNE
• INPoppoRTUNE was here

---
services:
 ytdlp2strm:
    image: fe80grau/ytdlp2strm
    container_name: ytdlp2STRM
    environment:
      - AM_I_IN_A_DOCKER_CONTAINER=Yes
      - DOCKER_PORT=5005
    volumes:
      - /local/path/to/media:/media
      - /local/path/to/channel_list.json:/opt/ytdlp2STRM/plugins/youtube/channel_list.json
      - /local/path/to/yt_config.json:/opt/ytdlp2STRM/plugins/youtube/config.json
      - /local/path/to/config.json:/opt/ytdlp2STRM/config/config.json
      - /local/path/to/crons.json:/opt/ytdlp2STRM/config/crons.json
      - ytdlp2strm-data:/opt/ytdlp2STRM
    ports:
      - 5005:5000
    restart: always
volumes:
  ytdlp2strm-data:

Where:

• /local/path/to/media is the local folder where the .strm file will be created
• /local/path/to/config.json is optional and will set your ytdlp2STRM general settings; formatted as config.example.json
• /local/path/to/crons.json is optional and will set your ytdlp2STRM cronjob settings; formatted as crons.example.json
• /local/path/to/channel_list.json is optional and will set your Youtube channel list; formatted as channel_list.example.json
• /local/path/to/yt_config.json is optional and will set your Youtube plugin settings; formatted as config.example.json

• The default env value of DOCKER_PORT is 5005, make sure to put 5005 as host port or re-declare the env value of DOCKER_PORT

Additional info

• After that you can view all channels folders within /media/Youtube and their strm files. If you are using Jellyfin/Emby, add /media/Youtube, /media/Twitch and /media/Crunchyroll as folders in Library and enjoy it!

New in v1.1.3

• Fix: Jellyfin daemon started even when jellyfin_preload was "False": the Crunchyroll plugin used bool(config['jellyfin_preload']), but bool("False") returns True in Python (any non-empty string is truthy). This caused the Jellyfin preload daemon to run and spam HTTP errors every minute even with the feature disabled. The check now uses str(value).lower() == 'true', matching the rest of the codebase.

New in v1.1.2

• Security hardening (Issue #122):
  • Argument injection protection: plugin streaming routes (/youtube/direct/<id>, /twitch/bridge/<id>, etc.) now validate the media ID against an allowlist ([A-Za-z0-9_.-], no leading -) before passing it to yt-dlp, returning HTTP 400 on invalid input.
  • Replaced eval() in cli.py: plugin method resolution now uses getattr instead of eval() on user-supplied strings, preventing code injection.
  • Host binding now respects ytdlp2strm_host: main.py reads ytdlp2strm_host from config.json instead of hardcoding 0.0.0.0. The default config now ships with 127.0.0.1, reducing accidental exposure of the admin UI to the network.
  • Optional HTTP Basic Auth for admin routes: setting ytdlp2strm_web_username and ytdlp2strm_web_password in config.json protects the dashboard (/, /general, /plugin, /crons, /log, /restart_service) while leaving streaming endpoints open for Jellyfin/Emby/Kodi. Streaming routes (/youtube/*, /twitch/*, etc.) remain unauthenticated so players keep working.

New in v1.1.1

• Fix: duplicate companion files in YouTube channels: when a YouTube video was renamed or the episode counter had advanced, every cron run regenerated .nfo, .png, .vtt and .srt files under a new episode number with no .strm next to them, while the real .strm lived at the original number. The existence check now runs before the new title/episode number is computed and reuses the path of the existing .strm for subtitle and metadata refreshes. The lookup also tolerates unreadable/locked files.
• Fix #119: video_quality change ignored until cache TTL expired: the direct-mode HLS cache (in memory and in <strm_output_folder>/.direct_cache) was keyed only by youtube_id + lang, so a previously-resolved low-quality variant kept being served after changing video_quality in plugins/youtube/config.json. The quality is now part of the cache key and filename, so changing the setting invalidates the previous caches immediately.
• Cleanup tool: scripts/clean_youtube_orphans.py removes companion files (.nfo, .png/.jpg/.webp, .vtt, .srt, .ass) that no longer have a matching .strm in the same folder. Runs in dry-run by default; pass --delete to actually remove files.

  python scripts/clean_youtube_orphans.py "/media/Youtube"           # dry-run
  python scripts/clean_youtube_orphans.py "/media/Youtube" --delete  # actually delete
  

• Centralized version: the application version is now read from version.py (__version__) and injected into every UI template as app_version, instead of being hardcoded in each HTML page and in cli.py. To cut a release just bump version.py.
• YouTube iframe mode: new generation method for the YouTube plugin. The .strm file is written with the public YouTube watch URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<id>) instead of a ytdlp2STRM endpoint, so players/apps that can resolve YouTube URLs natively don't need to go through this service. Use it from cron or CLI as --params iframe.

New in v1.1.0

• Season folders by year: YouTube and Twitch videos are now organized in year-based Season folders
  • Structure: Channel/Season {year}/S{year}E{XX} - video.strm
  • Example: Channel [ID]/Season 2025/S2025E01 - Video Title.strm
• UI improvements:
  • New UI
• Authentication improvements:
  • All yt-dlp commands now properly use cookie authentication
  • Better handling of subscriber-only content on Twitch

Youtube

• SponsorBlock doesn't work in redirect mode.
• Local NFO for each video
• audio- prefix
• Season folders by year: Videos are organized in Season {year} folders (e.g., Season 2025, Season 2026)
• Episode numbering: Files are named S{year}E{XX} format, resetting to E01 each year
• Cookie authentication: Supports both browser cookies and cookie files for age-restricted content
• Language configuration: Configurable audio language via lang parameter in config.json
• Video quality limit: video_quality can limit playback quality. Use best for the current behavior or values like 1080, 720, 480 to avoid selecting higher resolutions.
• Subtitles: When download_subtitles is enabled, YouTube .vtt subtitles are downloaded next to each .strm file. WebVTT files are post-processed to improve Jellyfin/Emby rendering:
  • Force centered subtitle alignment.
  • Remove YouTube karaoke inline timestamps.
  • Collapse repeated rollup/persiana cues.
  • The same cleanup is also applied when subtitles are served thr