browser-extension/README.md

Browser Extension for Tube Archivist

Core Functionality

This is a browser extension to bridge YouTube with Tube Archivist, your self hosted YouTube media server.

• Add your Tube Archivist connection details in the addon popup.
• On YouTube video pages, inject a download button to download that video and a subscribe button to subscribe to that channel.
• On YouTube channel pages, inject a button to subscribe to the channel or download the complete channel. Regarding the channel subpages, this follows the same rules as adding to the queue over the form.
• Throughout most places, hover over the video title to reveal a download button for that video.
• Sync your cookies for yt-dlp.

Screenshots

Popup to enter your connection details.

Button injected on video page to download the video or subscribe to the channel.

Download button injected showing when hovering over the video title.

Channel button injected to subscribe or download whole channel, video download button showing when hovering over the video title.

Install

• Firefox: The addon is available on the Extension store.
• Chrome: The addon is available on the Chrome Web Store.

Update

After a new release here on GitHub, you'll get updates automatically in your browser. Due to the verification process, for Firefox this usually takes 1-2 hours, for Chrome 2-3 days.

Permissions

• Access your data for www.youtube.com: Needed to inject download and subscribe buttons directly into the page.
• Storage: Needed to store your connection details.
• Cookie: Needed to read your cookies for youtube.com to access restricted videos.

Setup

• URL: This is where your Tube Archivist instance is located. Can be a host name or an IP address. Add the port if needed at the end, e.g. :8000.
• API key: You can find your API key on the settings page of your Tube Archivist instance.

A green checkmark will appear next to the Save button if your connection is working.

Options

• Sync YouTube cookies: Send your cookies to TubeArchivist to use for yt-dlp requests.
• Autostart: Autostart and prioritize videos send from this extension.

Test this extension

Before continuing loading the temporary extension here, make sure to deactivate/delete the main extension first.

Symlink/copy the correct manifest file for your browser to the expected location, e.g. ln -s manifest-firefox.json manifest.json.

• Firefox
  • Open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
  • Click on Load Temporary Add-on
  • Select the manifest.json file to load the addon.
  • You can inspect background.js by lunching the debug tools from there.
• Chrome / Chromium
  • Open chrome://extensions/
  • Toggle Developer mode on top right
  • Click on Load unpacked
  • Open the folder containing the manifest.json file.
  • Click on Service Worker to open the dev tools at background.js.

Compatibility

• Verify that you are running the latest version of Tube Archivist as the API is under development and will change.
• For testing this extension between releases, use the unstable builds of Tube Archivist, only for your testing environment.

Roadmap

Join us on Discord and help us improve and extend this project. This is a list of planned features, in no particular order:

• Implement download/subscribe button for playlists
• Add download buttons to the /shorts/ pages
• Get download and subscribe status from TA to show on the injected buttons
• Implement download button for videos on the YouTube homepage over inline preview
• Implement download button for videos on playlist
• Error handling for connection errors
• Dynamically inject buttons with mutation observer

Making changes to the JavaScript

The JavaScript does not require any build step; you just edit the files directly. However, there is config for eslint and prettier (a linter and formatter respectively); their use is recommended but not required. To use them, install node, run npm i from the root directory of this repository to install dependencies, then run npm run lint and npm run format to run eslint and prettier respectively.

Updating Artwork

Google listing is very picky. Screenshots need to be exactly 1280x800 in resolution and need to be in jpg or png without alpha canal.