Patreon Downloader

Lightweight helpers for using yt-dlp to download media from Patreon posts you have access to.

Contents

• with_ui.py + frontend.html — browser-based UI for inspecting post metadata and streaming downloads.
• batch.py — command-line batch downloader (supports urls.json).
• urls.sample.json — example JSON input file.

Features

• Inspect available formats and metadata before downloading.
• Stream yt-dlp output to the browser with live progress.
• Batch-mode support for many posts via a JSON file or inline list.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+ and pip.
• yt-dlp installed and available on PATH (or configure via environment variables).

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <repo-url>
cd patreon-downloader

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Export your Patreon cookies to cookies.txt (use a browser extension such as “Get cookies.txt”) and place it in the project root.

Quick Start

Web UI (recommended)

1. Start the UI server:

python with_ui.py

2. Open http://localhost:5000 in your browser.
3. Fill in the post URL and the path to cookies.txt. Inspect formats and click download. The terminal-like pane shows yt-dlp output live.

Batch mode

You can provide URLs in two ways:

• Inline in batch.py: edit the URLS list.
• JSON file: create urls.json (or set URLS_JSON) containing an array of URLs.

Example urls.json format (see urls.sample.json):

["https://www.patreon.com/posts/example-post-12345678", "https://www.patreon.com/posts/another-example-87654321"]

Run the batch script:

python batch.py

Configuration

• YTDLP_PATH (env): override yt-dlp executable for the UI server.
• DOWNLOAD_DIR (env): override download directory used by the UI server.
• URLS_JSON (env): path to a JSON file containing an array of URLs for batch.py (default: ./urls.json).

JSON input behavior (batch)

• If URLS_JSON exists and contains a non-empty array of strings, batch.py will use those URLs.
• If not present, batch.py falls back to the URLS list embedded in the script.

Examples

• Run single download quickly via UI.
• Use urls.sample.json as a template for bulk downloads.

Troubleshooting

• yt-dlp extractor or permission errors: re-export cookies.txt and ensure they are up to date.
• UI fetch timeout: the UI uses a 30s timeout for --dump-json; run the yt-dlp --dump-json command manually to debug.
• If downloads fail on Windows, ensure YTDLP in batch.py points to yt-dlp.exe.

Security & Ethics

• Use this tool only for content you are authorized to access (e.g., from subscriptions you paid for). Respect creators' terms.

Contributing

• Bug reports and pull requests welcome. Keep changes minimal and focused.

Files of interest

• with_ui.py — Flask UI server and job manager.
• frontend.html — browser interface.
• batch.py — command-line batch downloader (now supports JSON input).
• requirements.txt — Python dependencies.
• urls.sample.json — example JSON file.

Browser helper

Use the included get_urls.js helper to extract post URLs from a Patreon page via the browser console. Paste and run the script in the console while viewing a page with posts; the script logs an array of URLs which you can right-click and "Copy Object" on.

License

• MIT No Attribution — see MIT-0.txt.

Made with Claude Sonnet in about 15 Minutes.