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YouTube Cookie File Setup

Overview

A YouTube session cookie file lets yt-dlp act as a logged-in user and reduces HTTP 403 errors. Cookie files are local-only credentials — never commit them to Git.

Setup

  1. Install a browser extension such as Get cookies.txt LOCALLY (Chrome).
  2. Log in to YouTube in your browser.
  3. Export cookies for youtube.com to a local file (e.g. youtube.com_cookies.txt).
  4. Copy the file into your project directory (optional):
cd "$PROJECT_ROOT"
cp ~/Downloads/youtube.com_cookies.txt ./youtube_cookies.txt
chmod 600 ./youtube_cookies.txt
  1. Add to .env:
YOUTUBE_COOKIES_FILE="${PROJECT_ROOT}/youtube_cookies.txt"

Use an absolute path if the file lives outside the repository.

File permissions

Cookie files contain session credentials. Restrict access to your user account only:

chmod 600 /path/to/youtube_cookies.txt

Do not use world-readable permissions (644 or 755).

Security

  • Never commit cookie files. This repository ignores common variations:
    • youtube_cookies.txt
    • youtube.com_cookies.txt
    • cookies.txt
    • *.cookies.txt
  • Rotate cookies periodically (every 1–2 weeks) or when 403 errors return.
  • If a cookie file was ever committed, revoke the session (log out / change password) and rotate.

Test

yt-dlp --cookies "$YOUTUBE_COOKIES_FILE" \
  --extract-audio --audio-format m4a \
  "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

Troubleshooting

Issue Action
File not found Verify YOUTUBE_COOKIES_FILE path in .env
403 persists Re-export cookies; confirm YouTube login; update yt-dlp
Extension fails Try an alternate cookies.txt exporter