Web app

Running Rewyt with containers is the recommended way to get started.

Note

This guide uses Podman, but Docker works too. Commands are mostly the same with docker in place of podman, though some steps (like podman machine and podman artifact) don’t have a direct Docker equivalent.

The app runs as two containers managed by Compose:

• Rewyt (ghcr.io/xymaxim/rewyt): the main app, with yt-dlp, ffmpeg, and ypb inside
• PO token provider (brainicism/bgutil-ytdlp-pot-provider): handles YouTube’s bot verification in the background

Prerequisites

• Podman with Compose

• YouTube cookies exported from your browser

macOS and Windows

On macOS and Windows, Podman requires a virtual machine. Initialize and start it once:

podman machine init
podman machine start

The machine starts automatically on subsequent reboots.

Set up

1. Pull the compose file and extract it to a local directory:

   podman artifact pull ghcr.io/xymaxim/rewyt-compose
   podman artifact extract ghcr.io/xymaxim/rewyt-compose ~/rewyt-app
   cd ~/rewyt-app
   

   This gives you compose.yaml and .env.template files with defaults, containing configuration variables, including ypb’s — see Configuration below for what’s available.

2. Copy .env.template to .env and edit that copy:

   cp .env.template .env
   

   .env is yours to customize and won’t be overwritten by future updates.

Set up cookies (recommended)

YouTube may respond with a “Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot” error without cookies, so setting them up is recommended. To avoid this:

1. Export cookies from your browser into a cookies.txt file.

2. In .env, set YPB_YTDLP_CONFIG_DIR to the directory where you want to store yt-dlp related config files.

3. Place cookies.txt inside that directory.

4. Reference it from your yt-dlp config file:

    --cookies /path/to/cookies.txt
   

Usage

Start the app:

podman compose up -d

Then open it in your browser:

http://localhost:8080

When done, shut down the app and the PO token provider sidecar:

podman compose down

Configuration

The .env.template file (copied to .env during setup) holds configuration variables, including ypb’s. See ypb’s Configuration section for what’s available and how to set them.

Update the app

To update the container images:

podman compose pull

To pick up changes to compose.yaml or .env.template, re-run the extract step. This leaves your .env untouched:

podman artifact pull ghcr.io/xymaxim/rewyt-compose
podman artifact extract ghcr.io/xymaxim/rewyt-compose .