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<!doctype html>
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<p class="sidebar-brand-text">Streamlink</p>
<p class="sidebar-brand-oneliner">A command-line utility that extracts streams from various services and pipes them into a video player of choice.</p>
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<pre class="sidebar-versions-current">8.5.0</pre>
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<article role="main" id="furo-main-content">
<section id="tutorial">
<h1>Tutorial<a class="headerlink" href="#tutorial" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h1>
<section id="introduction">
<h2>Introduction<a class="headerlink" href="#introduction" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
<p>Streamlink is a command-line application, which means that the commands described
here should be typed into a terminal, or to be more precise, into a command-line shell.</p>
<p>On Windows, you have to open either the <a class="reference external" href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/get-started">Windows Terminal</a> (recommended), <a class="reference external" href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/">PowerShell</a> or <a class="reference external" href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/windows-commands">Command Prompt</a> (discouraged).
On macOS, open the <a class="reference external" href="https://support.apple.com/guide/terminal/welcome/mac">Terminal</a> app, and if you're on Linux or BSD,
the terminal emulator depends on your desktop environment and its configuration.</p>
<p>The way Streamlink works is that it's only a means to extract and transport
the streams, and the playback is done by an external video player. Streamlink
works best with <a class="reference external" href="https://videolan.org/">VLC</a> or <a class="reference external" href="https://mpv.io/">mpv</a>, which are also cross-platform, but other players
may be compatible too, see the <a class="reference internal" href="../players.html#players"><span class="std std-ref">Players</span></a> page for a complete overview.</p>
</section>
<section id="getting-started">
<h2>Getting started<a class="headerlink" href="#getting-started" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
<p>Now to get into actually using Streamlink, let's say you want to watch the
stream located on <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNEL</span></code>, you start off by telling Streamlink
where to attempt to extract streams from. This is done by setting the URL as the
first argument on the <strong class="command">streamlink</strong> command:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">$ </span>streamlink<span class="w"> </span>twitch.tv/CHANNEL
<span class="go">[cli][info] Found matching plugin twitch for URL twitch.tv/CHANNEL</span>
<span class="go">Available streams: audio_only, 160p (worst), 360p, 480p, 720p60, 1080p60 (best)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>You don't need to include the protocol when dealing with HTTP(s) URLs,
e.g. just <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">twitch.tv/CHANNEL</span></code> is enough and quicker to type.</p>
</div>
<div class="admonition caution">
<p class="admonition-title">Caution</p>
<p>Depending on the command-line shell in use, any kind of command argument like the input URL for example
may need to get quoted or escaped. See the <a class="reference internal" href="#shell-syntax">Shell syntax</a> section down below.</p>
</div>
<p>This command will tell Streamlink to attempt to extract streams from the URL
specified via its <a class="reference internal" href="../plugins.html#plugins"><span class="std std-ref">plugins system</span></a> which is responsible for resolving streams from specific
streaming services. If it's successful, Streamlink will print out a list of available streams to choose from.</p>
<p>In addition to Streamlink's plugins system, direct stream URLs can be played via the
<a class="reference internal" href="protocols.html#streaming-protocols"><span class="std std-ref">supported streaming protocols</span></a>, which also support playback of local files
using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">file://</span></code> protocol. Relative file paths and absolute paths are supported. All path separators are <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">/</span></code>,
even on Windows.</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">$ </span>streamlink<span class="w"> </span>hls://file://C:/hls/playlist.m3u8
<span class="go">[cli][info] Found matching plugin stream for URL hls://file://C:/hls/playlist.m3u8</span>
<span class="go">Available streams: 180p (worst), 272p, 408p, 554p, 818p, 1744p (best)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To select a stream and start playback, simply add the stream name as a second
argument to the <strong class="command">streamlink</strong> command:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">$ </span>streamlink<span class="w"> </span>twitch.tv/CHANNEL<span class="w"> </span>1080p60
<span class="go">[cli][info] Found matching plugin twitch for URL twitch.tv/CHANNEL</span>
<span class="go">[cli][info] Opening stream: 1080p60 (hls)</span>
<span class="go">[cli][info] Starting player: vlc</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The stream you chose should now be playing in the player. It's a common use case
to just want to start the highest quality stream and not be bothered with what it's
named. To do this, just specify <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">best</span></code> as the stream name and Streamlink will
attempt to rank the streams and open the one of highest quality. You can also
specify <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">worst</span></code> to get the lowest quality.</p>
<p>Now that you have a basic grasp of how Streamlink works, you may want to look
into customizing it to your own needs, such as:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Creating a <a class="reference internal" href="config.html#configuration-file"><span class="std std-ref">configuration file</span></a> of options you want to use.</p></li>
<li><p>Setting up your player to cache some data before playing the stream to help avoiding buffering issues
or reducing its default buffering values for being able to watch low-latency streams.</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="shell-syntax">
<h2>Shell syntax<a class="headerlink" href="#shell-syntax" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
<p>Depending on your used command-line shell and how you've entered the command,
input strings like the URL or other command arguments may need to get <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_character">escaped</a> or quoted,
because command-line shells interpret and treat certain characters as special symbols which can alter the shell's behavior,
like characters for substituting/expanding strings, delimiting commands, path/file globbing, etc.</p>
<p>The most relevant characters (among others) for input URLs that can cause unexpected results are</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">&</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">;</span></code> (command delimiting)</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">$</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">%</span></code> (variable substitution)</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">?</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">*</span></code> (path globbing)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The quoting and escaping behavior varies wildly between each shell and its configuration,
so please take a look at your shell's documentation about all the details, if you're unsure.</p>
<p><strong>Quoting and character escaping examples:</strong></p>
<p>URL: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">https://example/path?a=$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&</span></code></p>
<div class="sd-tab-set docutils">
<input checked="checked" id="sd-tab-item-0" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-0">
POSIX compliant</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html">BASH manual</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Doc/Release/zsh_toc.html">ZSH manual</a></p></li>
</ul>
<div class="highlight-sh notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>streamlink<span class="w"> </span><span class="s1">'https://example/path?a=$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&'</span>
streamlink<span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"https://example/path?a=\$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&"</span>
streamlink<span class="w"> </span>https://example/path?a<span class="o">=</span><span class="se">\$</span>one<span class="se">\&</span><span class="nv">b</span><span class="o">=</span>%two%<span class="se">\&</span><span class="nv">c</span><span class="o">=</span>*three*<span class="se">\;\&</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<input id="sd-tab-item-1" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-1">
FISH</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://fishshell.com/docs/current/language.html">FISH language documentation</a></p></li>
</ul>
<div class="highlight-fish notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>streamlink <span class="s1">'https://example/path?a=$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&'</span>
streamlink <span class="s2">"https://example/path?a=\$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&"</span>
streamlink https://example/path<span class="se">\?</span><span class="nv">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="se">\$</span>one<span class="o">&</span><span class="nv">b</span><span class="o">=</span>%two%<span class="o">&</span><span class="nv">c</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="se">\*</span>three<span class="se">\*\;\&</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<input id="sd-tab-item-2" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-2">
PowerShell</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/lang-spec/chapter-02">PowerShell language specification</a></p></li>
</ul>
<div class="highlight-pwsh notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">streamlink</span> <span class="s1">'https://example/path?a=$one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&'</span>
<span class="n">streamlink</span> <span class="s2">"https://example/path?a=</span><span class="se">`$</span><span class="s2">one&b=%two%&c=*three*;&"</span>
<span class="n">streamlink</span> <span class="n">https</span><span class="p">://</span><span class="n">example</span><span class="p">/</span><span class="n">path</span><span class="k">?</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">=`$</span><span class="n">one</span><span class="p">`&</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="p">=</span><span class="k">%</span><span class="n">two</span><span class="p">%`&</span><span class="n">c</span><span class="p">=*</span><span class="n">three</span><span class="p">*`;`&</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<input id="sd-tab-item-3" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-3">
Windows Batch</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://ss64.com/nt/syntax-esc.html">Escape characters, delimiters and quotes</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/31420292">Percent sign escaping</a></p></li>
</ul>
<div class="highlight-bat notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>streamlink <span class="s2">"https://example/path?a=$one&b="</span><span class="nv">%"two"%</span><span class="s2">"&c=*three*;&"</span>
streamlink https://example/path?a=$one<span class="se">^&</span>b=<span class="se">^%</span>two<span class="se">^%^&</span>c=*three*<span class="se">^;^&</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
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