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Sorting Formats

You can change the criteria for being considered the best by using -S (--format-sort). The general format for this is --format-sort field1,field2....

Available Sort Fields​

The available fields are:

  • hasvid: Gives priority to formats that have a video stream
  • hasaud: Gives priority to formats that have an audio stream
  • ie_pref: The format preference
  • lang: The language preference as determined by the extractor (e.g. original language preferred over audio description)
  • quality: The quality of the format
  • source: The preference of the source
  • proto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native/m3u8 > http_dash_segments> websocket_frag > mms/rtsp > f4f/f4m)
  • vcodec: Video Codec (av01 > vp9.2 > vp9 > h265 > h264 > vp8 > h263 > theora > other)
  • acodec: Audio Codec (flac/alac > wav/aiff > opus > vorbis > aac > mp4a > mp3 > ac4 > eac3 > ac3 > dts > other)
  • codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
  • vext: Video Extension (mp4 > mov > webm > flv > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used, webm is preferred.
  • aext: Audio Extension (m4a > aac > mp3 > ogg > opus > webm > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used, the order changes to ogg > opus > webm > mp3 > m4a > aac
  • ext: Equivalent to vext,aext
  • filesize: Exact filesize, if known in advance
  • fs_approx: Approximate filesize
  • size: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
  • height: Height of video
  • width: Width of video
  • res: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
  • fps: Framerate of video
  • hdr: The dynamic range of the video (DV > HDR12 > HDR10+ > HDR10 > HLG > SDR)
  • channels: The number of audio channels
  • tbr: Total average bitrate in kbps
  • vbr: Average video bitrate in kbps
  • abr: Average audio bitrate in kbps
  • br: Average bitrate in kbps, tbr/vbr/abr
  • asr: Audio sample rate in Hz

Sort Order and Modifiers​

All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. E.g. +res prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a :. E.g. res:720 prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p.

For codec and ext, you can provide two preferred values, the first for video and the second for audio. E.g. +codec:avc:m4a (equivalent to +vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a) sets the video codec preference to h264 > h265 > vp9 > vp9.2 > av01 > vp8 > h263 > theora and audio codec preference to mp4a > aac > vorbis > opus > mp3 > ac3 > dts.

You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using ~ as the delimiter. E.g. filesize~1G prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.

Priority and Default Order​

The fields hasvid and ie_pref are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behavior can be changed by using --format-sort-force. Apart from these, the default order used is: lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,vcodec,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.

Note that the default for hdr is hdr:12; i.e. Dolby Vision is not preferred. This choice was made since DV formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future.

If your format selector is worst, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all respects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps.

Tip: You can use the -v -F to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).