YouTube Screenshot Taker

A command-line tool to take high-quality screenshots from any YouTube video at specified timestamps. It uses yt-dlp to fetch the video stream and ffmpeg to extract frames.

Features

• Capture screenshots from YouTube videos at any timestamp (seconds or HH:MM:SS format).
• Supports multiple timestamps per run.
• Output screenshots are saved with safe, descriptive filenames.
• Handles both direct timestamp input and timestamp files.
• Automatically organizes screenshots into per-video folders.

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• yt-dlp (Python package)
• ffmpeg (must be installed and available in your system PATH)

Install Python dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Install ffmpeg (if not already installed):

• Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
• Windows: Download from ffmpeg.org and add to PATH.

Usage

python youtube_screenshot_taker.py -u <YOUTUBE_URL> -ts <TIMESTAMP1> <TIMESTAMP2> ...

Or, using a file with timestamps (one per line):

python youtube_screenshot_taker.py -u <YOUTUBE_URL> -tf <TIMESTAMPS_FILE>

Arguments

• -u, --url (required): The URL of the YouTube video.
• -ts, --timestamps: List of timestamps (e.g., 10 0:45 120.5 01:02:03). Can be in seconds or HH:MM:SS format.
• -tf, --timestamps_file: Path to a file containing timestamps, one per line.
• -o, --output_dir_base: Base directory to save screenshots (default: cli_screenshots). A subfolder for each video will be created.

Example

python youtube_screenshot_taker.py -u "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlM4ntQBGI" -ts 10 0:45 120.5 "01:02:03"

Or with a file:

# timestamps.txt
10
0:45
120.5
01:02:03

python youtube_screenshot_taker.py -u "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlM4ntQBGI" -tf timestamps.txt

Output

Screenshots are saved in a subfolder of the output directory, named after the video ID. Filenames include the video ID and timestamp, e.g.:

cli_screenshots/video_ZhlM4ntQBGI/video_ZhlM4ntQBGI_ts_03_15.jpg

Troubleshooting

• Ensure yt-dlp and ffmpeg are installed and accessible from your command line.
• If you encounter errors, check the printed logs for details.

License

MIT License