Have you consulted the ‘README’ that is both in the yt-dlp directory as well as the github regarding installation?

Is ~.local/bin in your PATH?

Did you make it executable?
chmod a+rx ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp # Make executable

What is the output of your $PATH? (feel free to anonymise usernames)
echo $PATH

I found pipx the easiest way to install and manage a current ytdlp installation

sudo apt install pipx
pipx ensurepath

pipx install yt-dlp

Yes I know, it’s an additional package manager, but it actually is a package manager and will therefore ensure the setup is correct

I’ll assume you’re new to Debian, so apologies if this is not true. The reason I say this is because generally speaking, “installing with wget” isn’t how one is supposed to install software in Debian, using a program called apt is. yt-dlp is available in Debian 13’s repositories. What I suggest doing is running apt install yt-dlp as root. That way the app will be installed globally, meaning it’ll work without the system spitting out the error you’ve described. And on another positive note, the app will get updated automatically whenever you upgrade the system.

If this isn’t for you, suggestions from other users here are valid and helpful.

Don’t Python scripts need python at the beginning of the command that summons them?

Alternatively, you can make an alias to ~/.bashrc: alias yt-dl="python3 /path/to/yt-dlp [options] " And replace [options] for flags you may want to always use, if any. Or delete if you just want the raw script to be tied to a terminal command.

Then reload .bashrc by running either source .bashrc or . .bashrc

what you should do: delete that file and then listen to onlooker’s advice about using apt to install software when you can

what is happening: an arbitrary file you create to hold the contents of some data you streamed off the internet, for very good reason, is not automatically treated as an executable, partly because for all wget knows, it’s just a photograph or some text. to mark a file as executable, you need to run chmod +x /path/to/script/file to add to the file’s permissions. to learn more, and you should, please learn about file permissions and how those work on linux systems.

I believe you simply downloaded the file to ~/.local/bin/yt-dlp, you did not install it. You need to either add that location to your path or you need to cd to that folder in terminal, then run the command. It will check things in the current folder when trying to run executables.

Hey arsus5478

There are instructions to install with wget on the git page as you mention and you seem to have folowed that guide, but the easiest way is to use APT.

For debian I would add the PPA repo:

There are clear instruction on the git page to install from apt.

About half way down the page you will see APT.

github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation

APT

You can download and install yt-dlp for recent Ubuntu and other related Debian-based distributions by adding this PPA

Add ppa repo to apt

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tomtomtom/yt-dlp

Update package list

sudo apt update

Install yt-dlp

sudo apt install yt-dlp

Your system’s package manager will now automatically download the correct dependencies and keep the package updated with the rest of your system whenever you update:

Done

this is a good introduction to adding an external PPA repo to apt and getting to know debian

Add

PATH="${PATH}:~/.local/bin"

To your .zhrc or .bashrc (whatever you use) and either source the file or open a new terminal. Should be as simple as that (assuming +x permissions)

um, isn’t it easier to just:
sudo apt install yt-dlp
yt-dlp -U

The people telling you to use apt are pointing you in the wrong direction. Usually it’s better to use apt but sometimes with software that updates very often for a good reason like yt-dlp you can end up with old nonfunctional versions. Apt versions of yt-dlp are often several steps behind the arms race and just fail to work in weird ways.

The person telling you to add .local/bin to your $PATH is the one you should be listening to. The program isn’t launching because when you type it in, the terminal only looks in the places defined in the environment variable $PATH to see if the thing you typed corresponds to a program.

Once you have added the install location to path, be sure to add -U to your invocations of yt-dlp especially if they’re running automatically. The -U flag causes yt-dlp to try to update itself before attempting to do whatever you asked so things will almost never fail because of an old version.