STREAMLINK(1)

📦

version 8.6.3 · 16 versions

STREAMLINK(1) — streamlink 🦋💅

okay so bestie, this is the streamlink manual page, and it is literally the moment. This tool extracts streams from various services and pipes them into a video player of choice. It’s giving “one command, many services” energy, and we are obsessed.

🫶 NAME 🫶

streamlink — extracts streams from various services and pipes them into a video player of choice

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

streamlink [OPTIONS] <URL> [STREAM]

🎬 EXAMPLES 🎬

streamlink --loglevel debug youtu.be/VIDEO-ID best
streamlink --player mpv --player-args '--no-border --no-keepaspect-window' twitch.tv/CHANNEL 1080p60
streamlink --player-external-http --player-external-http-port 8888 URL STREAM
streamlink --output /path/to/file --http-timeout 60 URL STREAM
streamlink --stdout URL STREAM | ffmpeg -i pipe:0 ...
streamlink --http-header 'Authorization=OAuth TOKEN' --http-header 'Referer=URL' URL STREAM
streamlink --hls-live-edge 5 --stream-segment-threads 5 'hls://https://host/playlist.m3u8' best
streamlink --twitch-low-latency -p mpv -a '--cache=yes --demuxer-max-back-bytes=2G' twitch.tv/CHANNEL best

💅 OPTIONS 💅

🌸 Positional arguments 🌸

URL — A URL to attempt to extract streams from.

Usually, the protocol of http(s) URLs can be omitted (https://), depending on the implementation of the plugin being used.

Alternatively, the URL can also be specified by using the --url option.

STREAM — Stream to play.

Use best or worst for selecting the highest or lowest available quality.

Fallback streams can be specified by using a comma-separated list:

"720p,480p,best"

If no stream is specified and --default-stream is not used, then a list of available streams will be printed.

🌟 General options 🌟

-h, --help — Show this help message and exit.
-V, --version — Show version string and exit.
--version-check — Run a version check and exit.
--auto-version-check {yes,true,1,on,no,false,0,off} — Enable or disable the automatic check for a new version of Streamlink.

Default is: "no".

--config FILENAME — Load options from this config file.

Can be repeated to load multiple files, in which case the options are merged on top of each other where the last config has highest priority.

--no-config — Disable loading any default or custom config files.
--locale LOCALE — Override the system's locale setting, for selecting the preferred subtitle and audio language.

The locale is formatted as [language_code]_[country_code], e.g. en_US or es_ES.

Default is: system locale.

📝 Logging arguments 📝

-l LEVEL, --loglevel LEVEL — Set the log message threshold.

Valid levels are, in order of increasing verbosity:

none, critical, error, warning, info, debug, trace, all

Default is: "info".

--logformat FORMAT — Set a custom logging format.

See the Python standard library's logging.Formatter docs for more information about the logging format and the available LogRecord attributes. Streamlink's formatter uses the curly brace style.

The default format depends on the chosen log level.

For verbose levels (trace and all):

Default is: [{asctime}][{threadName}][{name}][{levelname}] {message}.

Otherwise:

Default is: [{name}][{levelname}] {message}.

--logdateformat DATEFORMAT — Set a custom logging date format.

This formats the LogRecord's asctime attribute via strftime().

The default date format depends on the chosen log level.

For verbose levels (trace and all):

Default is: %H:%M:%S.%f.

Otherwise:

Default is: %H:%M:%S.

--logfile FILE — Append log output to FILE instead of writing to stdout/stderr.

User prompts and download progress won't be written to FILE.

A value of - (dash) will set the file name to an ISO8601-like string and will choose the following default log directories.

Windows:

%TEMP%\streamlink\logs

macOS:

${HOME}/Library/Logs/streamlink

Linux/BSD:

${XDG_STATE_HOME:-${HOME}/.local/state}/streamlink/logs

-Q, --quiet — Suppress all console and log output, and also disable user prompts.
-j, --json — Output JSON representations instead of the normal text output.

Useful for external scripting.

🧩 Plugin options 🧩

--plugins — Print a list of all currently installed plugins.
--show-matchers PLUGIN — Show the list of matchers of a specific plugin (URL regex pattern with opt. priority and opt. name).

The output is a human-readable pseudo YAML format. Please use --json when reading matcher data programmatically.

--can-handle-url URL — Check if Streamlink has a plugin that can handle the specified URL.

Status code is 0 on success, 1 on failure.

Useful for external scripting.

--can-handle-url-no-redirect URL — Same as --can-handle-url, but without following redirects when looking up the URL.
--no-plugin-cache — Disable I/O of the plugin key-value store.

If disabled, plugins won't be able to load or store data like cookies, authentication data, etc. The data which is loaded or stored depends on each plugin implementation.

--no-plugin-sideloading — Disable automatic sideloading of third-party plugins from the default location.

See the plugin-sideloading documentation for where third-party plugins are loaded from.

--plugin-dir DIRECTORY — Load additional plugins from this directory.

Can be set multiple times to load plugins from multiple directories.

--plugin-dirs DIRECTORY — Load additional plugins from a list of comma-separated directories.

Deprecated in favor of --plugin-dir.

🌐 Network arguments 🌐

--interface INTERFACE — Select the network interface, either by IP address or by interface name.

The following optional prefixes are supported:

if!<name> — interface name
host!<name> — IP address or hostname
ifhost!<interface>!<host> — interface name and IP address or hostname

NOTE: On Windows, only IP addresses are supported and prefixes are ignored.

-4, --ipv4 — Resolve address names to IPv4 only. This option overrides --ipv6.
-6, --ipv6 — Resolve address names to IPv6 only. This option overrides --ipv4.

🎮 Player options 🎮

-p PATH, --player PATH — Set the player executable that will be launched (unless a different output method was chosen).

Either set an absolute or relative path to the player executable, or just set the executable's name if it can be resolved from the paths of the system's PATH environment variable.

In addition to setting the player executable path, custom player arguments can be set via --player-args.

NOTE: In the past, --player allowed defining additional player arguments, which as a consequence required wrapping player paths that contained spaces in quotation marks. This is unsupported since release 6.0.0.

Default is: VLC player, if available.

-a ARGUMENTS, --player-args ARGUMENTS — Set a string of custom --player launch arguments that will be parsed and tokenized.

The value can contain formatting variables surrounded by curly braces, { and }. Curly brace characters can be escaped by doubling, e.g. {{ and }}.

Available formatting variables:

{playerinput} — This is the input argument that the --player will receive. For standard input (stdin), it is - (dash), but it can also be a file path or URL, depending on the options used. If unset, then the player input argument will be appended to the parsed player arguments list.
{playertitleargs} — The automatically generated player title arguments, if a supported --player was found. See --title for more. If unset, automatically generated player title arguments will be prepended to the parsed player arguments list.

Example:

streamlink -p vlc -a "--play-and-exit --no-one-instance" <url> [stream]

Default is: "".

--player-env KEY=VALUE — Add an additional environment variable to the spawned --player process, in addition to the ones inherited from the Streamlink/Python parent process. This allows setting player environment variables in config files.

Can be repeated to add multiple environment variables.

-v, --player-verbose — Write the --player's stdout/stderr output to Streamlink's stdout/stderr output.
--verbose-player — Deprecated in favor of --player-verbose.
-n, --player-fifo — Make the --player read the stream through a named pipe instead of the stdin pipe.
--fifo — Deprecated in favor of --player-fifo.
--player-http — Make the --player read the stream through HTTP instead of the stdin pipe.
--player-continuous-http — Make the --player read the stream through HTTP, but unlike --player-http, it will continuously try to open the stream if the player requests it.

This enables the handling of stream disconnects if the player is capable of reconnecting to a HTTP stream. This is usually done by setting the player to a "repeat mode".

--player-external-http — Serve stream data through HTTP without opening the --player. This is useful to allow external devices like smartphones or streaming boxes to watch streams they wouldn't be able to otherwise.

The default behavior is similar to the --player-continuous-http option, but no player program will be started, and the server will listen on all available connections instead of just in the local (loopback) interface.

See --player-external-http-interface for choosing a specific network interface, and see --player-external-http-port for choosing a non-randomized port.

Optionally, the --player-external-http-continuous option allows for disabling the continuous run-mode, so that Streamlink will stop when the stream ends.

The URLs that can be used to access the stream will be printed to the console, and the server can be interrupted using CTRL-C.

--player-external-http-continuous {yes,true,1,on,no,false,0,off} — okay so this one picks the run-mode of --player-external-http, and your choices are continuous or not-continuous, no in-between 💅

In the continuous run-mode, Streamlink keeps running after the stream has ended and waits for the next HTTP request being made — unless it gets shut down via Ctrl+C. So it just... sits there, main character energy, waiting for you to come back 🫶

If set to non-continuous, Streamlink stops once the stream has ended. That's it, that's the vibe.

Default is: true.

--player-external-http-interface INTERFACE — sets the network interface the HTTP server will be listening on. If unset or set to 0.0.0.0, all available interfaces get bound. Basically "who's allowed to knock on the door" 🚪
--player-external-http-port PORT — sets the port of the external HTTP server, if that mode is even enabled. Omit it or set it to 0 to use a random high (>1024) port, aka let the universe decide ✨
--player-passthrough TYPES — a comma-delimited list of stream types you want to pass to the --player as a URL, so the player handles the transport of the stream instead of Streamlink. Delegation! We love to see it 👑

Stream types that can be converted into a playable URL are:

hls
http

Make sure the player can actually handle the stream type when using this. Don't hand someone a raw URL and act surprised 😭

--player-no-close — so by default Streamlink closes the --player when the stream ends. This is to avoid "dead" GUI players lingering after Streamlink has exited 💀

It does however have the side-effect of sometimes closing a player before it has played back all of its cached data. Rude, honestly.

This option will instead let the player decide when to exit. Player autonomy, periodt.

-t TITLE
--title TITLE — changes the title of the --player's window 🎀

Please see the "Metadata variables" section of Streamlink's CLI documentation for all available metadata variables, as well as the "Plugins" section for the list of metadata variables defined in each plugin.

Only the following players are supported:

mpv
PotPlayer
VLC

Example:

streamlink -p mpv --title "{author} - {category} - {title}" <URL> [STREAM]

🎀 File output options 🎀

-O
--stdout — writes stream data to stdout instead of playing it in the --player. Pipe it, redirect it, do your thing 💅
-o FILENAME
--output FILENAME — writes stream data to FILENAME instead of playing it in the --player. If FILENAME is set to - (dash), then the stream data gets written to stdout, similar to the --stdout argument. Sneaky but iconic.

Directories and subdirectories will be created if they don't exist, if filesystem permissions allow 🫶

Unless --force is set, Streamlink will ask for confirmation before writing if FILENAME already exists. Consent matters!

Unsupported characters in substituted variables will be replaced with an underscore. (More on that down below 👀)

Example:

streamlink --output "~/recordings/{author}/{category}/{id}-{time:%Y%m%d%H%M%S}.ts" <URL> [STREAM]

-r FILENAME
--record FILENAME — writes stream data to FILENAME while at the same time allowing playback in the --player or writing it to --stdout. Record AND watch?? Multitasking queen behavior 👑

If FILENAME is set to - (dash), then the stream data will be written to stdout, similar to the --stdout argument, while still opening the player.

Directories and subdirectories will be created if they don't exist, if filesystem permissions allow.

Unless --force is set, Streamlink will ask for confirmation before writing if FILENAME already exists.

Unsupported characters in substituted variables will be replaced with an underscore.

Example:

streamlink --record "~/recordings/{author}/{category}/{id}-{time:%Y%m%d%H%M%S}.ts" <URL> [STREAM]

-R FILENAME
--record-and-pipe FILENAME — deprecated in favor of --stdout --record=FILENAME. It's giving "still works but please move on" 🙈
--fs-safe-rules {POSIX,Windows} — the rules used to make formatting variables filesystem-safe get chosen automatically according to the type of system in use. This overrides that automatic detection. You're the boss now 💅

Intended for use when Streamlink is running on a UNIX-like OS but writing to Windows filesystems such as NTFS; USB devices using VFAT or exFAT; CIFS shares that are enforcing Windows filename limitations, etc. Cross-platform chaos, handled.

These characters are replaced with an underscore for the rules in use:

POSIX: \x00-\x1F /
Windows: \x00-\x1F \x7F " * / : < > ? \ |

-f
--force — when using --output or --record, always write to file even if it already exists (overwrite). No questions asked, no thoughts, just vibes 🔥
--skip — when using --output or --record, never write to file if it already exists (don't prompt). Respectfully declining ✋

Takes precedence over --force. So if both are on, --skip wins. Rules are rules.

--progress {yes,force,no} — when using --output or --record, show or hide the download progress bar, or force it if there's no terminal. The little bar is genuinely so satisfying, ngl 🍓

Default is: yes.

🌈 Stream options 🌈

--url URL — a URL to attempt to extract streams from.

Usually, the protocol of http(s) URLs can be omitted (https://), depending on the implementation of the plugin being used.

This is an alternative to setting the URL using a positional argument and can be useful if set in a config file. Config file girlies rise 🫶

--default-stream STREAM — stream to play.

Use best or worst for selecting the highest or lowest available quality. Extremes only.

Fallback streams can be specified by using a comma-separated list:

"720p,480p,best"

This is an alternative to setting the stream using a positional argument and can be useful if set in a config file.

--stream-url — if possible, translate the resolved stream to a URL and print it. Just the URL, mwah 💋
--retry-streams DELAY — retry fetching the list of available streams until streams are found while waiting DELAY second(s) between each attempt. Persistence is lowkey iconic.

The number of retry attempts can be capped with --retry-max. A default value of 1 is implied for non-zero values of --retry-max.

If both --retry-streams and --retry-max are set to 0, then only one attempt will be made to fetch the list of available streams. This is the default behavior. One shot, no notes.

--retry-max COUNT — stop fetching the list of available streams after COUNT retry attempt(s).

A value of 0 makes Streamlink fetch streams indefinitely if --retry-streams is set to a non-zero value. If --retry-streams is unset, then the default delay between fetching available streams is 1 second. Forever and ever and ever 💀

--retry-open ATTEMPTS — after a successful fetch, try ATTEMPTS time(s) to open the stream until giving up. Know when to let go, bestie.

Default is: 1.

--stream-types TYPES
--stream-priority TYPES — a comma-delimited list of stream types to allow.

The order will be used to separate streams when there are multiple streams with the same name but different stream types. Any stream type not listed will be omitted from the available streams list. An * (asterisk) can be used as a wildcard to match any other type of stream, e.g. dash. Wildcard slay ✨

Default is: "hls,http,*".

--stream-sorting-excludes STREAMS — fine-tune the best and worst stream name synonyms by excluding unwanted streams. Curated.

If all of the available streams get excluded, best and worst will become inaccessible and new special stream synonyms best-unfiltered and worst-unfiltered can be used as a fallback selection method. Emergency backup besties 🫶

The filter-expression's format is:

[operator]<value>

Valid operators are >, >=, < and <=. If no operator is specified then equality is tested.

For example this will exclude streams ranked higher than "480p":

--stream-sorting-excludes ">480p"

Multiple filters can be used by separating each expression with a comma.

For example this will exclude streams from two quality types:

--stream-sorting-excludes ">480p,>medium"

🦋 Stream transport options 🦋

--ringbuffer-size SIZE — the maximum size of the ringbuffer.

Mebibytes or kibibytes (base 2) can be specified via the M or K suffix respectively.

The ringbuffer is used as a temporary storage between the stream and the player. This allows Streamlink to download the stream faster than the player which reads the data from the ringbuffer. It's like a little snack drawer for your player 🍓

The smaller the size of the ringbuffer, the higher the chance of the player buffering if the download speed decreases, and the higher the size, the more data can be use as a storage to recover from volatile download speeds.

Most players have their own additional cache and will read the ringbuffer's content as soon as data is available. If the player stops reading data while playback is paused, Streamlink will continue to download the stream in the background as long as the ringbuffer doesn't get full.

Default is: "16M".

--stream-segment-attempts ATTEMPTS — the number of download attempts of each stream segment before giving up. Try again energy, but with a limit.

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 3.

--stream-segment-threads THREADS — the size of the thread pool used to download segments. Minimum value is 1 and maximum is 10. Yes, ten is the ceiling, don't try it.

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 1.

--stream-segment-timeout TIMEOUT — the maximum time to wait for each segment to start downloading. Clock's ticking ⏳

This applies to all different kinds of segmented stream types, such as DASH, HLS, etc.

Default is: 10.0.

--stream-segmented-duration [[XX:]XX:]XX[.XX] | [XXh][XXm][XX[.XX]s] — limit the output duration of segmented streams, like HLS and DASH. The actual duration may be slightly longer, as it is rounded to the nearest segment 🎀

Set to 0 to disable.

Default is: 0.

--stream-segmented-queue-deadline FACTOR — so this is a multiplication factor on the time frame where new segments have to get queued, otherwise you get playback issues from not enough video/audio data. If this segment-queue-deadline isn't met, the stream gets stopped early. The whole point of this deadline is being able to bail early when the server never announces that the stream ended, so Streamlink doesn't have to sit there waiting for a buffer read-timeout to happen. Peep --stream-timeout for that. The base time this factor multiplies depends on the specific stream implementation and whatever values the streaming server hands back. This deadline check happens after trying to fetch new data. Set it to 0 to disable. Default is 3.0 — so by default Streamlink waits three times as long for new segments than the server's advertised time frame. 🕰️
--stream-timeout TIMEOUT — the maximum time to wait for an unfiltered stream to keep outputting data. This hits all the different kinds of stream types, like DASH, HLS, HTTP, etc. Default is 60.0. ⏳
--stream-passthrough-encrypted — passes data from encrypted streams straight through with no decryption and no encryption checks. This applies to DASH and HLS streams, and yeah... it will likely result in garbage output. 💀
--mux-subtitles — automatically muxes available subtitles into the output stream. Needs the used plugin to support it. 🎬

🎀 HLS options 🎀

--hls-live-edge SEGMENTS — how many segments from the live stream's current live position to start streaming at. The size or length of each segment is decided by the streaming provider, not us. Lower values decrease latency but also increase the chance of buffering, because Streamlink has less time to download segments and write their data to the output buffer. You can set the number of parallel segment downloads with --stream-segment-threads, and override the HLS playlist reload time for fetching and queueing new segments with --hls-playlist-reload-time. Default is 3.

NOTE: during live playback the caching/buffering settings of the player you're using add extra latency on top. To adjust that, please refer to the player's own documentation for the required configuration. Player parameters can be set via --player-args. 🫶

--hls-segment-stream-data — immediately writes segment data into the output buffer while it's downloading. 🚀
--hls-playlist-reload-attempts ATTEMPTS — the maximum number of attempts when reloading the HLS playlist before giving up. Default is 3.
--hls-playlist-reload-time TIME — set a custom HLS playlist reload time value, either in seconds or by using one of these keywords:
- segment: the duration of the last segment in the current playlist
- live-edge: the sum of segment durations of the live edge value minus one
- default: the playlist's target duration metadata

Default is default. ✨

--hls-segment-queue-threshold FACTOR — deprecated in favor of --stream-segmented-queue-deadline.
--hls-segment-ignore-names NAMES — a comma-delimited list of segment names that get filtered out.

Example: --hls-segment-ignore-names 000,001,002

This will ignore every segment that ends with 000.ts, 001.ts and 002.ts.

Default is None. 🙈

--hls-segment-key-uri URI — override the segment encryption key URIs for encrypted streams. The value can be templated using these variables, which get replaced with their respective part from the source segment URI:

{url} {scheme} {netloc} {path} {query}

Examples:

--hls-segment-key-uri "https://example.com/hls/encryption_key"
--hls-segment-key-uri "{scheme}://1.2.3.4{path}{query}"
--hls-segment-key-uri "{scheme}://{netloc}/custom/path/to/key"

Default is None. 🔑

--hls-audio-select CODE — select one or more specific audio sources by language code or name. Can be set to * (asterisk) to include all audio sources.

Examples:

--hls-audio-select "English,German"
--hls-audio-select "en,de"
--hls-audio-select "*"

NOTE: this is only useful in special circumstances where the regular locale option fails, like when multiple sources of the same language exist. 🎧

--hls-start-offset [[XX:]XX:]XX[.XX] | [XXh][XXm][XX[.XX]s] — the amount of time to skip from the beginning of the stream. For live streams this is a negative offset from the end of the stream (basically a rewind). Default is 0. ⏪
--hls-duration [[XX:]XX:]XX[.XX] | [XXh][XXm][XX[.XX]s] — deprecated in favor of --stream-segmented-duration.
--hls-live-restart — skips to the beginning of a live stream, or as far back as possible. 🔁

🌈 DASH options 🌈

--dash-manifest-reload-attempts ATTEMPTS — the maximum number of attempts when reloading the DASH manifest before giving up. Default is 3.

🔥 FFmpeg options 🔥

--ffmpeg-ffmpeg FILENAME — set the location of the FFmpeg executable if it can't be resolved from the paths in the system's PATH environment variable. FFmpeg is required to access or mux separate video and audio streams, e.g. in DASH streams or HLS streams with multiple sources.

Example: --ffmpeg-ffmpeg "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg" 🎞️

--ffmpeg-no-validation — disables FFmpeg validation and version logging.
--ffmpeg-verbose — writes FFmpeg's stderr output to Streamlink's stderr output.
--ffmpeg-verbose-path PATH — writes FFmpeg's stderr output to PATH.
--ffmpeg-loglevel LOGLEVEL — changes FFmpeg's -loglevel value to LOGLEVEL. Unless --ffmpeg-verbose or --ffmpeg-verbose-path is set, changing the log level won't have any effect. Default is "info".
--ffmpeg-fout OUTFORMAT — sets the output format to OUTFORMAT. This only applies to streams which require muxing. Default is "matroska".

Example: --ffmpeg-fout "mpegts" 🎀

--ffmpeg-video-transcode CODEC — transcodes the video to CODEC. This only applies to streams which require muxing. Default is "copy".

Example: --ffmpeg-video-transcode "h264"

--ffmpeg-audio-transcode CODEC — transcodes the audio to CODEC. This only applies to streams which require muxing. Default is "copy".

Example: --ffmpeg-audio-transcode "aac" 🎵

--ffmpeg-copyts — sets the -copyts FFmpeg option, so input timestamps won't be processed and the initial start time offset value gets kept.
--ffmpeg-start-at-zero — enables the -start_at_zero FFmpeg option when using --ffmpeg-copyts.
--ffmpeg-validation-timeout SECONDS — timeout in seconds for FFmpeg version validation. Default is 4.0. Increase this on low-power systems if FFmpeg startup is slow. 🐢

🌸 HTTP options 🌸

--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY — an HTTP proxy to use for all HTTP and HTTPS requests, including WebSocket connections.

Example: --http-proxy "http://hostname:port/" 🧚

--http-cookie KEY=VALUE — a cookie to add to each HTTP request. Can be repeated to add multiple cookies. 🍪
--http-cookies-file PATH — a path to a cookies file whose cookie data gets added to HTTP requests. Can be repeated to add multiple cookie files. The file format must adhere to the Netscape HTTP Cookie File format (MozillaCookieJar, curl, etc.), also known as cookies.txt. Be aware that this format loses information about RFC 2965 cookies, and also about newer or non-standard cookie-attributes such as port. Unlike --http-cookie, which sends data with every request, this option gives you granular control by respecting domain, path, and other cookie attributes. 🗂️
--http-header KEY=VALUE — a header to add to each HTTP request. Can be repeated to add multiple headers.
--http-query-param KEY=VALUE — a query parameter to add to each HTTP request. Can be repeated to add multiple query parameters.
--http-ignore-env — ignores HTTP settings set in the environment, such as environment variables (HTTP_PROXY, etc) or ~/.netrc authentication. 🙅‍♀️
--http-no-ssl-verify — don't attempt to verify TLS/SSL certificates.

Use with caution, as it has TLS/SSL security implications. 💀

--http-disable-dh — disables Diffie Hellman key exchange.

Use with caution, as it has TLS/SSL security implications.

--http-ssl-cert PEM_FILENAME — SSL certificate to use: a .pem file. 📜
--http-ssl-cert-crt-key CRT_FILENAME KEY_FILENAME — SSL certificate to use: a .crt and a .key file.
--http-timeout TIMEOUT — sets the general timeout value used by all HTTP requests except the ones covered by other options. Default is 20.0. ⏱️

💜 Web browser options 💜

--webbrowser {yes,true,1,on,no,false,0,off} — enables or disables support for Streamlink's webbrowser API. This API lets plugins which implement it launch a web browser and extract data from websites which they otherwise couldn't get via the regular HTTP session in Python, because of specific JavaScript restrictions. The web browser runs isolated and in a clean environment with no access to regular user data. Streamlink currently only supports Chromium-based web browsers using the Chrome Devtools Protocol (CDP). That includes Chromium itself, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and others — but full support for third party Chromium forks is not guaranteed. Please try Chromium or Google Chrome when you hit any issues. Default is true. 🌐
--webbrowser-executable PATH — path to the web browser's executable. By default it gets looked up automatically according to the rules of the used webbrowser API implementation. That usually involves a list of known executable names and fallback paths on all supported operating systems. 🦋
--webbrowser-timeout TIME — the max amount of time the web browser is allowed to take to launch and execute. bestie, give it a generous window or it'll get cancelled mid-vibe 💅
--webbrowser-cdp-host HOST — host for the web browser's inter-process communication interface (CDP specific).

Default is: 127.0.0.1.

--webbrowser-cdp-port PORT — port for the web browser's inter-process communication interface (CDP specific).

Tries to find a free port by default. ✨ it literally hunts one down for you.

--webbrowser-cdp-timeout TIME — the maximum amount of time for waiting on a single CDP command response. one (1) response, one timer, no exceptions 🫶
--webbrowser-headless {yes,true,1,on,no,false,0,off} — whether to launch the web browser in headless mode or not. when it's enabled, it stays completely hidden and doesn't require a desktop environment to run. stealth mode fr 🥷

⚠️ heads up: headless mode might get blocked by websites that implement bot detections. you've been warned, don't come for me 😭

Default is: false.

🌈 Plugin-specific options 🌈

okay this is the part where every plugin gets its own little locker with its own little secrets. lets gooo 💖

🎀 Bbciplayer

--bbciplayer-username USERNAME — the username used to register with bbc.co.uk.
--bbciplayer-password PASSWORD — a bbc.co.uk account password to use with --bbciplayer-username.
--bbciplayer-hd — prefer HD streams over local SD streams. lowkey some live programmes may not be broadcast in HD, so don't be shocked 👑

🎀 Clubbingtv

--clubbingtv-username — the username used to register with Clubbing TV.
--clubbingtv-password — a Clubbing TV account password to use with --clubbingtv-username.

🎀 Kick

--kick-low-latency — enables low latency streaming by prefetching HLS segments. sets --hls-segment-stream-data to true and --hls-live-edge to 2, if it is higher. reducing --hls-live-edge to 1 will result in the lowest latency possible, but will most likely cause buffering. 😬

in order to achieve true low latency streaming during playback, the player's caching/buffering settings will need to be adjusted and reduced to a value as low as possible, but still high enough to not cause any buffering. this depends on the stream's bitrate and the quality of the connection to Kick's servers. please refer to the player's own documentation for the required configuration. player parameters can be set via --player-args. 🫶

NOTE: low latency streams have to be enabled by the broadcasters on Kick themselves. regular streams can cause buffering issues with this option enabled due to the reduced --hls-live-edge value. not me warning you twice 💀

🎀 Nicolive

--niconico-email EMAIL — the email or phone number associated with your Niconico account. (no period, that's just how it is, we respect it)
--niconico-password PASSWORD — the password of your Niconico account. (same, no period)
--niconico-user-session VALUE — value of the user-session token.

can be used as an alternative to providing a password. 🎟️

--niconico-purge-credentials — purge cached Niconico credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.
--niconico-timeshift-offset [[XX:]XX:]XX | [XXh][XXm][XXs] — amount of time to skip from the beginning of a stream.

Default is: 0.

🎀 Openrectv

--openrectv-email EMAIL — the email associated with your openrectv account, required to access any openrectv stream. required required, not optional required 🚨
--openrectv-password PASSWORD — an openrectv account password to use with --openrectv-email.

🎀 Pixiv

--pixiv-sessionid SESSIONID — the pixiv.net sessionid that's used in pixiv's PHPSESSID cookie.
--pixiv-devicetoken DEVICETOKEN — the pixiv.net device token that's used in pixiv's device_token cookie.
--pixiv-purge-credentials — purge cached Pixiv credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.
--pixiv-performer USER — select a co-host stream instead of the owner stream. 🎤 main character swap, love that for you

🎀 Raiplay

--raiplay-email EMAIL — the email used to register with raiplay.it.
--raiplay-password PASSWORD — a raiplay.it account password to use with --raiplay-email.
--raiplay-purge-credentials — purge cached RaiPlay credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

🎀 Soop

--soop-username USERNAME — the username used to register with sooplive.com.
--soop-password PASSWORD — a sooplive.com account password to use with --soop-username.
--soop-purge-credentials — purge cached Soop credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.
--soop-stream-password STREAM_PASSWORD — the password for the stream. 🔐

🎀 Steam

--steam-email EMAIL — a Steam account email address to access friends/private streams. (no period again, we keep it real)
--steam-password PASSWORD — a Steam account password to use with --steam-email.

🎀 Streann

--streann-url URL — source URL where the iframe is located, only required for direct URLs of ott.streann.com.

🎀 Tf1

--tf1-email EMAIL — the email address used to register with tf1.fr.
--tf1-password PASSWORD — a tf1.fr account password to use with --tf1-email.
--tf1-purge-credentials — purge cached tf1.fr credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

🎀 Twitcasting

--twitcasting-password PASSWORD — password for private Twitcasting streams. 🤫

🎀 Twitch

--twitch-low-latency — enables low latency streaming by prefetching HLS segments. sets --hls-segment-stream-data to true and --hls-live-edge to 2, if it is higher. reducing --hls-live-edge to 1 will result in the lowest latency possible, but will most likely cause buffering. 😭 (yes it's the same deal as Kick, twins)

in order to achieve true low latency streaming during playback, the player's caching/buffering settings will need to be adjusted and reduced to a value as low as possible, but still high enough to not cause any buffering. this depends on the stream's bitrate and the quality of the connection to Twitch's servers. please refer to the player's own documentation for the required configuration. player parameters can be set via --player-args.

NOTE: low latency streams have to be enabled by the broadcasters on Twitch themselves. regular streams can cause buffering issues with this option enabled due to the reduced --hls-live-edge value. 💀

--twitch-supported-codecs CODECS — a comma-separated list of codec names which signals Twitch the client's stream codec preference. which streams and which codecs are available depends on the specific channel and broadcast. 👑

Default is: "h264".

supported codecs are h264, h265 and av1. set to "h264,h265,av1" to enable all codecs.

higher quality streams may only be available by enabling h265 or av1. lower quality streams which are re-encoded on Twitch's end may still be h264, even if not requested. slay but also read it twice 🧚

--twitch-api-header KEY=VALUE — a header to add to each Twitch API HTTP request.

can be repeated to add multiple headers. 🔁

useful for adding authentication data that can prevent ads. see the plugin-specific documentation for more information. (ad-blocking era, we love it)

--twitch-access-token-param KEY=VALUE — a parameter to add to the API request for acquiring the streaming access token.

can be repeated to add multiple parameters. 🔁🔁

--twitch-force-client-integrity — don't attempt requesting the streaming access token without a client-integrity token. no token, no entry, periodt 💅
--twitch-purge-client-integrity — purge cached Twitch client-integrity token and acquire a new one. fresh start energy ✨

🎀 Ustreamtv

--ustream-password PASSWORD — a password to access password protected UStream.tv channels. (yes the option is --ustream-password while the plugin is Ustreamtv — that's canon, don't @ me)

🎀 Ustvnow

--ustvnow-username USERNAME — your USTV Now account username. (no period, iconic)
--ustvnow-password PASSWORD — your USTV Now account password. (also no period)

🎀 Wwenetwork

--wwenetwork-email EMAIL — the email associated with your WWE Network account, required to access any WWE Network stream. required required, again 🚨
--wwenetwork-password PASSWORD — a WWE Network account password to use with --wwenetwork-email.

🎀 Yupptv

--yupptv-boxid BOXID — the yupptv.com boxid that's used in the BoxId cookie.
--yupptv-yuppflixtoken YUPPFLIXTOKEN — the yupptv.com yuppflixtoken that's used in the YuppflixToken cookie. say that five times fast, i dare you 😭
--yupptv-purge-credentials — purge cached YuppTV credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.

🎀 Zattoo

--zattoo-email EMAIL — the email associated with your zattoo account, required to access any zattoo stream. 🚨 required, yes, again
--zattoo-password PASSWORD — a zattoo account password to use with --zattoo-email.
--zattoo-purge-credentials — purge cached zattoo credentials to initiate a new session and reauthenticate.
--zattoo-stream-types TYPES — a comma-delimited list of stream types which should be used.

the following types are allowed: dash, hls7

Default is: "dash".

🦋 BUGS 🦋

something broke? it happens to the best of us, no shame. please open a new issue on Streamlink's issue tracker on GitHub and use the appropriate issue forms:

https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink/issues

using the appropriate form is the whole vibe check here — read the forms, pick the right one, and everyone stays happy 🫶

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

for more detailed information about config files, plugin sideloading, streaming protocols, proxy support, metadata, or plugin specific stuff, please see Streamlink's online CLI documentation here:

https://streamlink.github.io/cli.html

the list of available plugins and their descriptions can be found here:

https://streamlink.github.io/plugins.html

like, go read them, they're giving main character documentation energy 👑

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Streamlink Contributors — a whole squad, we stan 🫶

💜 COPYRIGHT 💜

2026, Streamlink

and that's a wrap, bestie! 🎀 you just made it through the entire page — that's version 8.6.3, dated Oct 29, 2026, dropping as STREAMLINK(1) like the absolute icon it is. now go stream something and remember: purge your credentials responsibly 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: streamlink 8.6.3-1 · BSD
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms