No YouTube. Track channels, download videos locally, watch on your own terms.

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nyt is a self-hosted YouTube channel tracker. It monitors the channels you care about, downloads new uploads the moment they appear, and serves them through a clean web interface — no algorithm, no recommendations, no distractions. Just your subscriptions.

Features

Watching

• Responsive video grid with sort (by date or channel) and filter (all / unwatched)
• Native HTML5 player — streams video files directly from your machine via HTTP range requests
• Creator subtitles — VTT subtitle tracks downloaded alongside each video and loaded natively in the player with a language selector
• Chapter bar — interactive timeline below the player; click any segment to jump to that chapter, with the active chapter highlighted in real time
• Resume playback — the player remembers your position and offers to pick up where you left off
• Mark watched automatically on play, or manually from the grid

Downloading

• Auto-download new uploads from tracked channels, or enable stream-only mode per channel to list videos without storing them locally
• Quality variants via FFmpeg — transcode downloads to 720p, 480p, and 360p in the background; switch quality mid-playback from the player
• Storage cap — set a maximum GB limit; nyt tracks disk usage and displays a live usage meter in settings
• Auto-delete watched videos after a configurable number of days to reclaim space
• Download progress and transcoding progress streamed to the web UI in real time via SSE
• Desktop notifications on new uploads (Linux, macOS, Windows)

Channel management

• Search YouTube by handle and preview channel info (avatar, subscriber count, description) before tracking
• Per-channel custom poll interval — override the global watcher delay on a channel-by-channel basis
• Per-channel stream-only toggle

Server

• Single command (nyt serve) starts the web UI, REST API, and background watcher together
• Background watcher runs as a daemon thread — each channel is checked on its own schedule, skipped if not yet due
• JWT authentication — optional password protection using HS256 tokens; sessions last 30 days with automatic refresh on every page load, invalidated on logout or credential change
• Rotating log file (10 MB, 3 backups)

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or newer
• FFmpeg (optional — only needed for quality variant transcoding)

Docker

Requirements: Docker and Docker Compose (included with Docker Desktop).

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/ramsy0dev/nyt.git
cd nyt

2. Build and start

docker compose up -d

This builds the image, starts the container, and runs the watcher in the background. Everything — config, database, videos, avatars — is stored in a named Docker volume and persists across restarts and rebuilds.

3. Open the web UI

http://localhost:9473

4. Track your first channel

docker compose exec nyt nyt track --channel-handle LinusTechTips

The watcher picks up new uploads automatically every 60 minutes. Downloaded videos appear in the grid immediately.

5. Secure your instance (optional)

Set credentials before exposing nyt on a network:

docker compose exec nyt nyt superuser --username admin --password yourpassword
docker compose restart nyt

All pages will require login. To remove the password later:

docker compose exec nyt nyt superuser --disable
docker compose restart nyt

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Configuration

Change the watcher interval — edit docker-compose.yml and add a command override:

services:
  nyt:
    command: ["nyt", "serve", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--delay", "120"]

Expose on a different port:

services:
  nyt:
    ports:
      - "8080:9473"

Use a bind mount instead of a named volume (easier to browse downloaded files directly):

services:
  nyt:
    volumes:
      - ./data:/root/.nyt

After changing docker-compose.yml, run docker compose up -d to apply.

Install (without Docker)

pip install git+https://github.com/ramsy0dev/nyt.git

The config file, database, and directory structure under ~/.nyt/ are created automatically on first run.

Usage

Track a channel

nyt track --channel-handle LinusTechTips

Do not include the @. To stop tracking:

nyt remove --channel-handle LinusTechTips

Start the server

nyt serve

Opens the web UI + REST API + background watcher at http://localhost:9473.

# Custom host / port / global watcher interval
nyt serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080 --delay 120

Run the watcher standalone

Download-only mode, no web interface:

nyt watch --delay 60

Secure your instance

Set admin credentials before exposing nyt on a network:

nyt superuser --username admin --password yourpassword

Restart the server. All pages will redirect to a login screen until authenticated. To remove authentication:

nyt superuser --disable
# prompts for current credentials before clearing them

Web UI

Page	Path	Description
Home	/	Video grid — sort, filter, mark watched
Player	/watch/:id	Native player with subtitle tracks and chapter bar
Channels	/channels	Search YouTube, add/remove channels, configure poll intervals and download mode
Settings	/settings	Watcher interval, storage limit + usage meter, transcoding toggle, auth management
Login	/login	Only shown when a superuser is configured

Storage

Everything lives under ~/.nyt/ (Linux / macOS) or %UserProfile%\.nyt\ (Windows):

Path	Contents
nyt.toml	Configuration
nyt.db	SQLite database
nyt.log	Log file (rotating, 10 MB max)
videos/	Downloaded video files and subtitle VTTs
avatars/	Cached channel avatar images
assets/	nyt logo assets

Configuration

~/.nyt/nyt.toml is generated automatically. Key fields:

[nyt]
videos_prefix_directory = "/home/user/.nyt/videos"

[nyt.api]
host = "localhost"
port = "9473"

[nyt.watcher]
watch_delay_minutes = 60   # global default; overridable per channel from the UI

[nyt.player]
transcoding_enabled = false  # set true to generate 720p/480p/360p variants via FFmpeg

[nyt.storage]
storage_limit_gb = 0.0       # 0 = unlimited
auto_delete_watched_days = 0 # 0 = disabled; deletes watched video files after N days

[nyt.auth]
admin_username      = ""   # empty = auth disabled; managed via `nyt superuser`
admin_password_hash = ""
admin_salt          = ""

Auth fields are managed by nyt superuser — do not edit them manually.

License

GPL-3.0 — do whatever you want with it, just keep it open.