Modifying Metadata

The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using --parse-metadata and --replace-in-metadata

Replacing Metadata

--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE is used to replace text in any metadata field using Python regular expression. Backreferences can be used in the replace string for advanced use.

Parsing Metadata

The general syntax of --parse-metadata FROM:TO is to give the name of a field or an output template to extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon :. Either a Python regular expression with named capture groups, a single field name, or a similar syntax to the output template (only %(field)s formatting is supported) can be used for TO. The option can be used multiple times to parse and modify various fields.

Note that these options preserve their relative order, allowing replacements to be made in parsed fields and vice versa. Also, any field thus created can be used in the output template and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using --embed-metadata.

Special Uses

This option also has a few special uses:

• You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of the currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field additional_urls to the URL that you want to download. E.g. --parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)" will download the first vimeo video found in the description

• You can use this to change the metadata that is embedded in the media file. To do this, set the value of the corresponding field with a meta_ prefix. For example, any value you set to meta_description field will be added to the description field in the file - you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use the meta<n>_ prefix (e.g. meta1_language). Any value set to the meta_ field will overwrite all default values.

Note: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.

Default Metadata Fields

For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:

Metadata fields	From
title	track or title
date	upload_date
description, synopsis	description
purl, comment	webpage_url
track	track_number
artist	artist, artists, creator, creators, uploader or uploader_id
composer	composer or composers
genre	genre or genres
album	album
album_artist	album_artist or album_artists
disc	disc_number
show	series
season_number	season_number
episode_id	episode or episode_id
episode_sort	episode_number
language of each stream	the format's language

Note: The file format may not support some of these fields

Modifying Metadata Examples

# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"

# Regex example
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"

# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"

# Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --embed-metadata

# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
# handling multiple lines correctly
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --embed-metadata

# Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"

# Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "video::(?P<formats>)" --write-info-json

# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a "-"
$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"