If you've ever dreamed of controlling YouTube without stepping on the browser and without letting go of the keyboard, youtube-tui is just the productive geekiness you were looking for. This small project written in Rust Turn your Terminal into a full-fledged YouTube browser, capable of searching for videos, exploring channels, managing playlists, and playing content through external players such as mpv and yt-dlpall without ads or visual distractions.
Far from being a simple curious experiment, youtube-tui has become one of the best ways to enjoy YouTube from a command-line environmentAfter a period of inactivity, the project has been revived: major bugs have been fixed, it's working properly again, and it offers a more polished experience than ever. If you like Terminal, efficiency, and having complete control with the keyboard, keep reading because you're going to be very interested.
What is youtube-tui and what makes it special
In essence youtube-tui is a text-based user interface (TUI) for browsing YouTube from the TerminalIt's not a clone of the official website, but rather an alternative way to access the same content with a minimalist, fast, and uncluttered approach. Everything is displayed in text mode: search results, video titles, descriptions, channels, feeds, and playlists, without banners or floating elements.
The program acts as A lightweight frontend that relies on external tools like mpv or yt-dlp to play video or audioyoutube-tui doesn't directly decode multimedia content; instead, it delegates that task to specialized players you're already familiar with and can customize to your liking. This keeps TUI itself lightweight and focused on navigation, playlists, and interacting with YouTube.
One very interesting detail is that youtube-tui does not require official YouTube API keys to functionYou won't need to register with the Google Developers Console or struggle with credentials or quota limits. The program leverages existing ecosystem tools (such as yt-dlp) to access the necessary information from the videos and channels, which greatly simplifies the setup.
Advantages of using YouTube from the Terminal
For many people, the idea of ​​watching YouTube without a graphical browser might sound strange, but The TUI approach has several very clear advantages that are a perfect fit for advanced users and CLI enthusiasts.The most obvious is concentration: the YouTube interface on the web is full of suggestions, giant thumbnails, comments, shorts, banners, notifications and a thousand elements that compete for your attention.
With youtube-tui, All that layer of noise disappears, leaving you with only what really matters: title, channel, duration, description, and playlists.You won't see ads embedded in the interface, pop-ups, or live comments bombarding your screen. Nor will you get that feeling of "I started watching a video and ended up two hours later in a black hole of recommendations." Here, the user experience is much more direct and deliberate.
Furthermore, The complete keyboard controls make the experience extremely smooth once you get used to it.similar to tools like ytfzfSearching, navigating the results list, opening channels, jumping between video tabs or playlists, subscribing, or starting playback with mpv is all done using shortcuts and commands within the TUI. There's no need to constantly switch between mouse and keyboard.
To top off, The fact that everything happens within a Terminal fits very well with the workflows of technical users.You can have a tab with youtube-tui alongside others with an editor, logs, Docker containers, or SSH sessions. You don't have to leave your work environment or lose context by opening a full browser just to play some music or watch a specific video, as several guides summarize. Watch YouTube on Linux without a browser.
Compatibility and operating systems where it works best
youtube-tui is designed primarily with Unix-like environments in mind, Therefore, it performs best in GNU/Linux distributions and other similar systems.It works very well on Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu and family, as long as you have a decent Terminal and can install dependencies like Rust, mpv or yt-dlp as required.
In the specific case of Arch, the experience is especially comfortable because There is a package in the AUR that simplifies installation and dependency resolution.It's not included in the official repositories of most distros, but if you're used to dealing with community repositories, you shouldn't have too much trouble getting it up and running.
Things are different in Windows: Currently, there is no native version designed to run directly on the Microsoft system.That doesn't mean it's impossible to use; you can set up a virtual machine with Linux, use WSL2, or use any environment that provides a functional Unix-like terminal. But if you're looking for something fully integrated into Windows without intermediate layers, for now you'll have to wait or resort to these workarounds.
Installation on Arch Linux and other systems
In Arch Linux the process is quite straightforward if you are already familiar with the AUR. The easiest way is to use a helper like yay to automate the download, compilation, and installation of the package.Assuming you already have yay installed and configured, the basic command would be something as simple as:
yay -S youtube-tui
After executing the order, yay will take care of resolving all the dependencies necessary to compile the program written in RustOn very minimal systems (like a fresh Arch installation), it's normal to download quite a few additional packages to support the Rust toolchain and other related libraries. Don't be alarmed if you see a long list; it's usually just a one-off occurrence during initial use.
After the installation is complete, You can launch the program simply by running youtube-tui from your Terminal.From there, you'll have access to the text interface that will allow you to search for channels, navigate through sections, and play content. In other distributions, the process may involve compiling from source code or searching for a community package similar to the one in the AUR.
Because it was developed in Rust, It is also possible to install it using ecosystem tools such as Cargo if the project supports it and maintains a package on crates.ioThis approach usually requires a bit more skill and is not as convenient as installing a package already packaged by the community, but it can get you out of a bind in less popular distributions where there is no specific packaging.
How to navigate YouTube from youtube-tui
The first thing you'll notice when you open the application is that The interface is organized into several fundamental sections: search, channels, lists, and feedsYou won't see colorful icons or video cards, but you will see ordered lists of results with relevant and well-structured information to help you navigate quickly.
The search works very similarly to the official website: You enter your terms in the corresponding bar within the TUI and you get a list of matching videos.From there you can select the one you're interested in, open the channel it belongs to, view the extended description, or launch it in MPV using the configured shortcut. It's all done with the keyboard, so after a while you'll be navigating it almost by heart.
When you enter a specific channel, youtube-tui usually offers internal tabs to view the main videos, playlists, and the general channel section.You don't have comments, shorts, or stories, but you do have the kind of content that people are really interested in when they're specifically looking for a video or a series of posts.
If you prefer a more hybrid experience, youtube-tui also offers mouse support, so you can scroll and select items with clicks if you wish.It's not mandatory to use it, but it can be helpful if you're coming from more traditional interfaces and want a less steep learning curve before fully committing to the keyboard.
Subscriptions, feeds, and content management
One of the great advantages of youtube-tui is that it's not just for one-off searches, but it also allows you to subscribe to channels and access a feed with their latest videosIn this way, your Terminal becomes a kind of personalized "home page" where new posts from your favorite creators appear.
The flow is simple: When you find a channel that interests you, you can subscribe directly from the TUI interface.From that moment on, your most recent videos will appear on the feed page, very similar in concept to what the official YouTube website offers, but without all the extra noise.
This feed is especially useful if you use youtube-tui as control center for your content consumption from the TerminalInstead of opening the website to see what's new, you simply open the app, browse the latest videos from the channels you follow, and choose what to play in mpv. It's a much more intentional way to consume YouTube, less prone to distractions, and an alternative to other options like Free Tube.
Playlists and using the :playlist command
In addition to subscriptions, youtube-tui It manages playlists quite practically using internal commands.You can add a specific playlist simply by executing a command within the TUI itself, without having to juggle the website's graphical interface.
To incorporate a list into your environment, The internal command :playlist is used, followed by the corresponding URL.In other words, once you're inside youtube-tui, you write something like this: :playlist url.
This mechanism makes it very easy organize themed video collections or music playlists to play whenever you wantHowever, there is a significant limitation: music albums on YouTube Music are not directly managed as such in this workflow. If you want to use an album, it is recommended that you... Add that set of tracks to a playlist and then work with the playlist from youtube-tui.
Once added, The playlist will appear accessible within the interface, ready to be launched in your favorite player.In combination with mpv, you can leave an entire playlist playing while you continue working in other Terminal tabs, without needing to touch anything else. This approach complements other guides on how to Download and play videos from the Terminal.
Integration with mpv, yt-dlp and recommended plugins
The way youtube-tui handles playback is one of its strengths. Instead of reinventing the wheel, delegate the task to external players like mpv and tools like yt-dlp.In this way, the application is limited to providing the URL and the appropriate parameters, and all multimedia processing is left to programs that are already highly optimized for it.
mpv fits perfectly with youtube-tui because It is also a very convenient player to operate from the keyboard and highly configurable through configuration filesYou can adjust shortcuts, video quality, window behavior, audio output, subtitles, and virtually every aspect of playback.
If you're going to use YouTube primarily as For background music playback, it is highly recommended to install the ytdl-preload plugin for mpvThis plugin, available on GitHub, improves how mpv preloads and manages streaming from YouTube using yt-dlp, helping to make playback more stable and with fewer interruptions on variable connections. If you encounter occasional restrictions, try this yt-dlp option.
The combination of YouTube and TUI, mpv and yt-dlp create a tremendously powerful ecosystem for consuming multimedia content without a browserYou have full control from the keyboard, you can automate behaviors with scripts, adjust quality profiles depending on whether you want video or just audio, and keep resource consumption quite low compared to a browser loaded with tabs.
The experience of using YouTube from a Terminal
Beyond the technical aspect, there is an almost emotional component to watching YouTube from a command window. For those who grew up watching movies where system administrators and hackers did everything from the Terminal, this way of using it has a special charm.Browsing channels, playing background music or videos, and managing your playlists without leaving the CLI has a nostalgic feel and is also incredibly practical.
If you already regularly use Terminal for tasks like install applications, manage Docker containers, or connect to other computers via SSHIntegrating YouTube into this ecosystem also makes your workflow more seamless. You don't have to constantly switch between different interface paradigms: you do almost everything from the same window or the same emulator with multiple tabs.
Many users who switch to TUI for these types of tasks discover that Their productivity improves by reducing the number of visual and contextual interruptions.Opening a browser usually means ending up checking emails, social media, or whatever else was open in another tab. With youtube-tui, you can simply open it, play exactly what you want to watch or listen to, and then go back to what you were doing.
Terminals, customization, and a love for the command line
The rise of tools like youtube-tui goes hand in hand with the huge variety of modern Terminal emulators. Today there are dozens of well-designed options, such as Ghostty and many others, that offer crisp fonts, graphics acceleration, tabs, splits, and tons of settings.If you like to tinker, you can customize the Terminal to your liking.
Those who enjoy this environment usually have highly customized configurations of colors, keyboard shortcuts, and scriptsThe beauty of using TUI applications like youtube-tui is that they integrate perfectly into these configurations: you can have specific keybindings to launch it, shortcuts to switch between tabs with the editor, the music player and the log session, and all without leaving your text ecosystem.
This greatly reduces the need to remember where each graphical application is installed, or having to search for icons among menus and docksA couple of key combinations or a short command and you're already inside the tool you need, whether for work, system administration, or, in this case, enjoying some video or music without interrupting the flow. There are also other desktop playback alternatives such as smtube, if you prefer a different interface.
Project status and recent maintenance
For a while, youtube-tui was practically frozen, with a couple of years of hardly any activity. This lack of maintenance resulted in minor glitches and incompatibilities stemming from continuous changes to YouTube and the tools it relies on.However, the situation has changed and the project has received a significant boost.
In the current version, The most obvious problems have been fixed and the program is now working stably and smoothly again.This makes it, to this day, one of the best TUI options for YouTube available, not only for functionality, but also for the feeling that it is alive again and being cared for by its maintainer or community.
Many users consider that It's probably the best YouTube TUI currently available, partly because it combines ease of use, mouse support, and very clean integration with mpv and other external programs.It doesn't try to cover too much ground or become a feature monster, but focuses on what it does well: offering you YouTube from the Terminal without any hassle.
youtube-tui achieves something that few tools manage: transforming a platform designed for visual consumption and full of stimuli into a sober, controlled experience that is perfectly integrable into Terminal-based workflowsIt allows you to search and follow channels, manage feeds, work with playlists, and play content using mpv and yt-dlp, without relying on the official API or a browser. If you're comfortable with the command line, value concentration, and like the idea of ​​your Terminal emulator serving both for work and for relaxing with music or videos, giving youtube-tui a try is practically a must.