YouTube History Archiver

Saves every YouTube video you watch (on any device signed into your account) to a folder, and can upload it to the cloud.

Setup

Windows: double-click setup.bat. It:

1. Finds Python 3.10 or newer (via the py -3 launcher), or installs Python 3.12 if you don't have it
2. Installs the Python packages (customtkinter, yt-dlp, internetarchive)
3. Installs ffmpeg and Deno
4. Optionally installs rclone and walks you through connecting a cloud account
5. Puts a YouTube History Archiver shortcut on your desktop

After that, open the app from the desktop shortcut or Start YouTube Archiver.bat. Run setup.bat again any time to repair or update.

Automatic installs use winget, which comes with Windows 10/11. If it's missing, get "App Installer" from the Microsoft Store, or install Python from python.org (tick "Add python.exe to PATH").

Mac/Linux: install Python 3.10+, ffmpeg and Deno (brew install python ffmpeg deno on Mac), then run ./run_mac_linux.sh.

Also make sure YouTube watch history is on in your Google account.

Using it

1. Pick the browser you're logged into YouTube with.
2. Pick a save folder and quality.
3. First time only: click Skip existing history if you don't want your existing history downloaded.
4. Click Start watching. Leave the window open (minimise it).

Whole history vs. recent videos

By default the app checks your entire watch history on every run, so nothing is missed (including bursts of Shorts). Videos that are already saved are skipped without being downloaded again, so later checks are much faster than the first one.

The first run downloads everything you've ever watched, which can be thousands of videos and hundreds of GB. If you only want videos from now on, click Skip existing history before you start. To go back to checking only recent videos, turn off Check my whole history in Settings.

Speed and limits

In Settings > Speed and limits:

• Pace: Gentle waits 10–25 s between videos, Normal 2–6 s, Fast doesn't wait. Use Gentle for a big first download.
• Download speed limit: caps bandwidth in MB per second (0 = unlimited).
• Max videos per check: spreads a large backlog across several checks (0 = unlimited).
• Back off when YouTube slows you down: if YouTube starts refusing requests ("not a bot" checks, error 429), the app stops that check and waits the number of hours you set before trying again.

Videos removed from YouTube

The Removed page checks every video you've saved and lists the ones YouTube no longer has (deleted, terminated channel, copyright strike, or made private). Each one gets an Upload to Internet Archive button.

To set it up:

1. Make a free account at archive.org.
2. In the app, go to Settings > Internet Archive > Open archive.org, and copy your access key and secret key into the app.
3. Choose Ask me (you click upload yourself) or Upload automatically.

Uploads go to archive.org/details/youtube-<video id>, with the original title, channel, upload date, description and link. If someone already uploaded that video there, the app links to theirs instead of uploading a duplicate. If you use rclone "move" mode, the app downloads the file back from your cloud before uploading.

Uploads are public. Only upload videos you have the right to share; archive.org may remove copyrighted material. Your keys are stored in plain text in ~/.yt_history_archiver/config.json.

Headless: python core.py --check-removed checks for removals and uploads them automatically.

Tips and fixes

• Windows + Chrome/Edge: Chrome locks its cookies, so reading them often fails. Use Firefox, or export a cookies.txt with a "Get cookies.txt LOCALLY" extension and pick that file in the app.
• Downloads suddenly fail: YouTube changes often. Click Update yt-dlp and restart.
• Run without the window (cron / Task Scheduler): python core.py (or python app.py --once) does one pass with your saved settings. Example cron (every 30 min): */30 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /path/to/core.py
• Settings, the "already saved" list and a log live in ~/.yt_history_archiver/. Delete archive.txt there to re-download everything.
• Storage: roughly 0.5–1 GB per hour of 1080p video. Use 720p, audio-only or "skip shorter than" to cut it down.

Downloading YouTube videos goes against YouTube's Terms of Service; use it for your own personal archive and keep the check interval reasonable.

Credits

• Developer: Nolan Schleiff
• Built With: Claude 5.5 Opus by Anthropic