# YouTube-DL Forks to Continue Supporting Older Versions of Python 

**URL:** <https://onehack.st/t/youtube-dl-forks-to-continue-supporting-older-versions-of-python/213402>\
**Category:** News & Articles\
**Tags:** tools, programming\
**Created:** [January 30, 2022, 10:58am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/youtube-dl-forks-to-continue-supporting-older-versions-of-python/213402 "2022-01-30T10:58:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TheStrength](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/thestrength/32/46753_2.png) [@TheStrength](https://onehack.st/u/TheStrength)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 10:58am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/youtube-dl-forks-to-continue-supporting-older-versions-of-python/213402/1 "2022-01-30T10:58:19Z")

</div>

![image](https://onehack.st/uploads/default/original/3X/f/8/f8ba133a8b067d3ea6ac08933557522e0f3bfd39.png)

Wikipedia [defines youtube-dl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube-dl) as “a free and open source download manager for video and audio from YouTube and [over 1,000 other video hosting websites](http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html).” It was created in 2006, and “According [to libraries.io](https://libraries.io/pypi/youtube_dl), 308 other packages and 1.43k repositories depend on it.” The project now has over 106,000 stars on GitHub, and by one calculation it’s their [fourth-most starred project that’s written in Python](https://github.com/EvanLi/Github-Ranking/blob/master/Top100/Python.md).

A new issue today describes the project as “[Under new management](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/30568).”

_I hope that we’ll be able to make a new release soon and subsequently keep the program more up-to-date than has been the case for the last few months._

 

The project has a fork [https://github.com/yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp) that offers a lot of extra functions but demands an up-to-date Python version. This project will continue to target Python version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, at least until no-one complains about 2.6 compatibility.

Pull Requests are very welcome, although there is a significant back-log to be handled. Back-ports of yt-dlp features are also welcome.

Finally, I’d encourage anyone else who is interested in sharing maintenance duties to establish a track record and make themselves known. We want to keep this popular project alive with a community of future maintainers.\</i