You can simply download the correct binary file for your OS

In UNIX-like OSes (MacOS, Linux, BSD), you can also install the application into a location in your $PATH, such as ~/.local/bin, in one of the following ways:

curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp
chmod a+rx ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp  # Make executable

wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp
chmod a+rx ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp  # Make executable

aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp --dir ~/.local/bin -o yt-dlp
chmod a+rx ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp  # Make executable

To update, run:

yt-dlp -U

To use shell completion (autocomplete), look for the completion files in the source tarball. It comes with bash, fish & zsh support.

You can install the PyPI package with:

python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp[default]

You can install without any of the optional dependencies using:

python3 -m pip install --no-deps -U yt-dlp

You can also install the nightly version of yt-dlp with:

python3 -m pip install -U --pre yt-dlp[default]

If you want to be on the bleeding edge, you can also install the master branch with:

python3 -m pip install -U pip hatchling wheel
python3 -m pip install --force-reinstall "yt-dlp[default] @ https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/archive/master.tar.gz"

On some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3

To update, run:

python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp[default]