3 Ways to Run yt-dlp on iOS [GUI App]

Previously, I have published a post about running yt-dlp on Android. In this post, I will show you how to install and run yt-dlp as a replacement for youtube-dl on iOS. In case you don’t know, yt-dlp is an open-source program that allows you to download videos and music from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, etc. 

Since yt-dlp is a command line based tool, most people run it with Windows Command Prompt or macOS Terminal. With a free terminal app A-Shell on iOS, you can also run yt-dlp commands. If you don’t like the command experience, I will show 2 other workarounds to use yt-dlp to download media on your iPhone or iPad. 

Run yt-dlp with A-Shell

A-Shell is a terminal emulator app for iOS that allows you to run Unix commands. It has Python installed by default, so you can install yt-dlp directly. Yt-dlp itself lets you download YouTube videos in 720P when possible. If you want to download YouTube videos in 1080p with audio, you should also install ffmpeg. 

To install yt-dlp, you just need to run the following command after installing A-Shell app. 

pip install yt-dlp

If you also want to download high quality videos 1080p or above, run the following commands in order:

pip install yt-dlp
mkdir bin
cd bin
curl -L https://github.com/holzschu/a-Shell-commands/releases/download/0.1/ffmpeg.wasm -o ffmpeg.wasm

When all the process is complete, you can run the command to download video and music with a simple command.

yt-dlp [url]

Be sure to replace the url with the url of the video that you want to download. You can open the Files app and locate the downloaded files in On my iPhone > A-Shell folder. For more options, like downloading private YouTube videos, you can check yt-dlp Github page. 

Run yt-dlp with a Shortcut

For some people, it is a little complicated to run commands to download videos or audio with A-Shell. Especially, when you want to download private videos or extract audio from video, because you need to remember some other parameters. 

Fortunately, there is a custom shortcut, Chrunos Downloader (yt-dlp), to help you run yt-dlp to download videos easily. You can select “Audio” to extract audio from video. 

You don’t even need to type commands introduced in method 1 to install yt-dlp. What you do need to prepare is install A-Shell Terminal app or A-Shell Mini Terminal. 

With that configured, you can copy a URL of the video that you want to download and run this shortcut. You can also run this shortcut from share sheet. 

Ultimate Media Downloader Shortcut

If you don’t want to install A-Shell app on your iPhone or iPad, you can also use my Ultimate Media Downloader. It supports all websites yt-dlp supports. It allows you to select video quality and extract audio from video.

It works fine with YouTube and Instagram. However, you cannot use it to download images and content that requires a login to view. If you need to downlaod private videos, you can check a few private downloader apps that I recommend.

This shortcut relies on our server. To avoid server overload, please don’t try unsupported URL. If you want to support us, you can donate to keep our server running and encourage us to support more sites.

Conclusion

All 3 methods have been tested working in 2025. Personally, I love to use the shortcut method to run yt-dlp on iOS. It will bring you the video for quick preview when the download is complete and you can press the Share button to save it to your Camera Roll.