aws-lambda-youtube-dl

This project is no longer maintained. AWS does no longer bundle python in Node.js runtimes.

Download YouTube (and a few other sites) videos to S3 using Lambda powered by youtube-dl.

Deploy and Test

You need an up-to-date AWS CLI installed and configured on your machine and Node.js v8.10.

If you never worked with aws cloudformation package before, create an S3 bucket that stores the ZIP files that the package command generates. Run the following command and replace YOUR_BUCKET with a unique bucket name: aws s3 mb s3://YOUR_BUCKET.

Run the following commands (replace YOUR_BUCKET with your S3 bucket name to store ZIP files) to package the source code:

npm i
aws cloudformation package --s3-bucket YOUR_BUCKET --template-file template.yml --output-template-file .packaged.yml

Your output will look mostly like this:

Uploading to 864a6c31b9b19e4abfba8d28d719b9a8  8460482 / 8460482.0  (100.00%)
Successfully packaged artifacts and wrote output template to file .packaged.yml.
Execute the following command to deploy the packaged template
aws cloudformation deploy --template-file /Users/michael/Projects/widdix/aws-lambda-youtube-dl/.packaged.yml --stack-name <YOUR STACK NAME>

Now it's time to deploy the CloudFormation stack:

aws cloudformation deploy --stack-name aws-lambda-youtube-dl --template-file .packaged.yml --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM

Your output will look like this:

Waiting for changeset to be created..
Waiting for stack create/update to complete
Successfully created/updated stack - aws-lambda-youtube-dl

Finally, you can download YouTube video:

aws lambda invoke --function-name aws-lambda-youtube-dl --payload '{"videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QrzWPFucC4"}' .out.txt && cat .out.txt

Your output will look like this:

{
    "StatusCode": 200,
    "ExecutedVersion": "$LATEST"
}
{"bucketName":"aws-lambda-youtube-dl-bucket-fk6s5c4z7z9s","key":"d7d7cbc7-27c6-4ed2-bf18-82c98138be8d.mp4","url":"s3://aws-lambda-youtube-dl-bucket-fk6s5c4z7z9s/d7d7cbc7-27c6-4ed2-bf18-82c98138be8d.mp4"}

That's it.

To clean up, empty the S3 bucket that stores your video and remove the CloudFormation stack you created.

Interface

Event

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QrzWPFucC4"
}

Response

{
  "bucketName": "test",
  "key": "xyz.mp4",
  "url": "s3://test/xyz.mp4"
}

The key is generated based on the awsRequestId. The video is always in mp4 format.

Limitations

• The new nodejs10.x Lambda runtime does not contain python anymore, and therefore, youtube-dl does not work.
• The download from YouTube and upload to S3 must finish within 15 minutes (I have not found a video that was too big).