Installation, operations, and mobile sharing guides for youtube-dl-nas
The authenticated dashboard manages individual video, audio, and subtitle downloads on your NAS.
Use the language selector before sign-in or in the dashboard header to choose English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, or Polish. The app detects a supported browser language on first use, falls back to English, and remembers your selection.
Choose Compatible MP4 (H.264/AAC) for clients that need broadly playable codecs. This profile fails honestly when the source does not offer that combination; it does not transcode media or change the meaning of Best.
After a request is queued successfully, the dashboard remembers that profile on the current device. A new or invalid preference falls back to Best, and URLs are never submitted automatically.
Open Options to save a JPG thumbnail beside the media file, choose the profile used by PWA mobile sharing on this device, or manage a Netscape cookies file for restricted sources. Ask every time prefills the shared URL in this form so you can review its output profile.
Cookies are sensitive account credentials. Upload only a file exported for a site you are authorized to access. An app-managed file is validated, limited to 1 MiB, stored in the persistent metadata volume with owner-only permissions, and can be replaced or removed here. If YTDLP_COOKIES_FILE points to an external mount, Options reports its readiness but cannot modify it.
When a URL points to a playlist or channel, Playlist Guard shows a scope selector. A video URL that also carries a playlist defaults to Current video only. Pure playlist and channel URLs require First 10 or All items before they can be queued. Each completed item receives its own Files & History row.
The activity panel shows the active title, channel, thumbnail, progress, transfer speed, ETA, and free space on the download volume. Up next lists waiting requests in processing order with their source and selected quality. Use the square stop control to cancel the active download while retaining compatible partial data, or use the remove icon to cancel a waiting request before it starts.
The storage indicator warns at 10 GiB free and pauses new queue additions at 2 GiB free by default. Failed items show a safe reason and a concrete next action in the detail panel without saving credentials, cookie contents, private URLs, or mounted paths as diagnostics.
The queue is saved in the persistent metadata volume without a database. If the container restarts, the interrupted active request returns first, followed by the remaining jobs. Restored jobs are labeled Restored after restart. Compatible partial files continue through yt-dlp; exact byte-range resume support depends on the source.
The same normalized URL, download profile, and options cannot be queued twice accidentally. A second check uses the extracted media ID to detect an existing NAS file. Repeated completion signals reuse the existing history row and its original download date. Failed history items remain retryable because no completed file is present.
On desktop, the detail area opens with Library Overview. On compact and mobile layouts, use the statistics button in Files & History to open the same layer. It summarizes stored-file count and size, completed downloads from the last 7 days, a 14-day activity chart, media-type distribution, and recorded failures from the current history. Mounted files count toward stored-library totals but not download activity. Selecting a media type or failure group applies the existing history filters.
Use Preview to play an existing video or audio file without downloading it again. Saved thumbnail sidecars are used in the grid and listed in item details. Other actions can retry a failed job, download the saved file, remove only its history row, or delete the physical file and its thumbnail sidecar.
When a mobile browser returns from the background, Files & History and Current Activity refresh automatically without resetting the selected view, filters, page, or detail item.
For an available SRT, VTT, ASS, or SSA file, select Subtitle QA from the item actions. Paste the verified reference transcript and optionally add comma- or line-separated keywords, then select Analyze.
The result reports character accuracy (CRR), character error rate (CER), word error rate (WER), character edit counts, and keyword preservation. The selected file and reference text remain inside the NAS container. nlptutti is installed or upgraded when a new container starts so the analyzer follows current package releases.
Files already present in /downfolder are discovered automatically. When no saved download record exists, the dashboard labels the item Mounted and No metadata. The file remains available for preview, browser download, and deletion, but its original source URL and quality cannot be reconstructed.
Clearing history rows does not delete physical files. Kept files are discovered again as mounted files.
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
The latest and 26.0822 images support linux/amd64 and linux/arm64.
For phone sharing, continue to the Mobile Share Setup.