📺 YouTubio: Stremio YouTube Addon

A Stremio addon that lets you watch YouTube videos and access your subscriptions, watch later list, and history directly inside Stremio.

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✨ Features

• Watch YouTube Content in Stremio – Browse and watch your favorite YouTube videos without leaving the Stremio app.
• Personalized Feeds – Access your Subscriptions, Watch Later list, and viewing history.
• Powerful Search – Search for YouTube videos and channels directly within Stremio.
• Customizable Catalogs – Use default catalogs or add your own custom playlists.
• Ad- and Click-Bait-Free - Use SponsorBlock (with configurable Gemini fallback support) and/or DeArrow across all of YouTube.
• Secure Configuration – User data (including cookies) is encrypted for security.
• Easy Deployment – Deploy with Docker, Node.js, or ngrok.

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⏱️ Quick Setup with Cookies

For more detailed instructions or other platforms, go to the YT-DLP cookie extraction guide

1. Install the Addon Get cookies.txt LOCALLY in a Chromium browser (or cookies.txt for Firefox)
   
   
   

2. Allow the extension in Private Windows
   
   
   
   Enable Allow in InPrivate
   
   

3. Open a Private Window
   
   
   

4. Go to youtube.com and sign in
   

5. Extract the cookies.txt
   
   
   
   

6. Close the Window
   
   

7. In your Stremio-logged-in browser, go to youtubio.elfhosted.com and Paste the Content in the Textbox
   
   

8. Generate and Install the manifest in the way of your choosing
   
   
   

Important

The manifest URL is a credential-bearing URL when it contains encrypted cookies. Keep it private. After upgrading, generate a new manifest URL; old raw-JSON URLs may not work with playlist URLs.

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🚀 Deployment

🐳 Docker Deployment

✅ Prerequisites

• Docker installed

⚡ Steps

# Build the Docker image
docker build -t youtubio .

🟢 Node.js Deployment

✅ Prerequisites

• Node.js 24 installed
• npm package manager
• YT-DLP installed

⚡ Steps

# Install dependencies
npm install --omit=dev

# Start the addon
npm start

By default, the addon will be available at: http://localhost:7000

Environment Variables

Copy .env.example to .env and set the values needed by your deployment. npm start loads .env automatically. For Docker, supply the file at runtime: docker run --env-file .env -p 7000:7000 youtubio.

Variable	Default	Effect
ENCRYPTION_KEY	Random per process	Base64-encoded 32-byte key used to encrypt and decrypt user cookies and Gemini keys. Required for production so generated configuration URLs survive restarts.
PORT	7000	HTTP listening port.
CACHE_TTL	3600	Cached yt-dlp metadata lifetime and Stremio catalog cache hint, in seconds. TTL remains supported for existing deployments.
REDIS_URL	Unset	Optional Redis URL for shared yt-dlp metadata caching. A bounded in-process cache is used without Redis or when it is unavailable.
CONFIG_DB_PATH	XDG state directory	SQLite path for encrypted server-side configurations. Set to /data/youtubio.sqlite and mount /data persistently in Docker/Coolify.
PRIVATE_MODE	Unset	Set to 1 to require a password before generating protected Stremio addon links. Existing unprotected links stop working.
PRIVATE_MODE_PASSWORD	Unset	Shared password for private mode (at least 16 characters). Keep it secret and stable; changing it invalidates previously issued access tokens.
SPACE_HOST	Unset	Public hostname, without https://, shown in the startup configuration URL.
YTDLP_EXTRACTORS	all	Value passed to yt-dlp's --ies option to restrict enabled extractors.
DEV_LOGGING	Unset	Enables Fastify debug logs, error logging, and main-branch icon assets.
NO_DEARROW	Unset	Disables DeArrow titles and thumbnails and hides its configuration option.
NO_SPONSORBLOCK	Unset	Disables SponsorBlock and Gemini fallback and hides their configuration options.
EMBED	Unset	Trusted HTML inserted into the configuration page. Do not set from untrusted input.
YTDLP_EXTRACTORS_EMBED	Unset	Trusted HTML inserted into the supported-extractors section. Do not set from untrusted input.

Search catalogs return 20 results per page using Stremio's skip parameter. Search results use fixed cache lifetimes: 20 minutes for video searches and 5 days for channel searches. Other cacheable metadata uses TTL. The in-process cache holds up to 100 entries or 32 MiB per instance and is cleared on restart.

Private mode issues a separate access token on each successful password entry. Stremio cannot supply a password on every request, so generated addon URLs carry that token and should be treated as credentials. Installed links do not expire; the configuration page can revoke all links issued from one password entry. Changing PRIVATE_MODE_PASSWORD also invalidates existing tokens. Use HTTPS and preserve the SQLite database, ENCRYPTION_KEY, and private-mode password when moving between servers. Direct media URLs returned by yt-dlp may still be accessible at their original providers; private mode protects this addon's endpoints. Public YouTube searches run without cookies, so expired Google sessions do not prevent searching; account-only feeds still require valid cookies.

For DEV_LOGGING, NO_DEARROW, and NO_SPONSORBLOCK, any non-empty value enables the option.

⚙️ ngrok Deployment

✅ Prerequisites

• Node.js 24 installed
• npm package manager
• YT-DLP installed
• ngrok account

⚡ Steps

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the addon
npm run local

By default, the addon will be available at: http://localhost:7000

Example YouTube Search Catalog

Playlist ID / URL: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query={term}{sort}

Name: Search

Sort Order (Sort Name: Sort ID):

Note

By including the &sp= in the ID, we can ensure the catalog works without sorting parameters as well.

• Video Relevance: &sp=CAASAhAB
• Video Upload Date: &sp=CAISAhAB
• Video View Count: &sp=CAMSAhAB
• Video Rating: &sp=CAESAhAB
• Channel Relevance: &sp=CAASAhAC
• Channel Upload Date: &sp=CAISAhAC
• Channel View Count: &sp=CAMSAhAC
• Channel Rating: &sp=CAESAhAC