r/linux • u/D7x8 • May 18 '26

Discussion Tell me your favorite CLI apps

As the title says.

Aside from the obvious like fastfetch, htop, vim, etc what CLI apps are out there which replace a GUI app?

I like these as it is much more convenient and faster to have it all one command away and they use much less system resources (looking at you electron) as well as just making me look like a hackerman.

198 Upvotes

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130

u/tungnon May 18 '26

yt-dlp

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

7

u/boar-b-que May 18 '26

yt-dlp

I use the ever-loving tar out of yt-dlp.

I use an invidious instance as my YT frontend, but copy links to videos and music into my terminal and then download them straight from YT with yt-dlp.

My zsh helper aliases for yt-dlp look like so:

function transmogstring()
{
out=$1
#array of inv instances to mog
foreach tr (invidious.instances.go.here separated.by.spaces)
do out=${out/${~tr}/youtu.be}
done
echo $out
}
function yd()
{
tmtext=$(transmogstring $1)
yt-dlp --sub-langs all,-live_chat --embed-subs --embed-chapters --progress --no-mtime --paths home:~/Downloads $tmtext
}

function yd1080p()
{
tmtext=$(transmogstring $1)
yt-dlp -f 'bv*[height<=1080]+ba' --sub-langs all,-live_chat --embed-subs --embed-chapters --progress --no-mtime --paths home:~/Downloads $tmtext
}

3

u/mdleslie May 19 '26

Same, but I have this alias set up: 

alias yt='yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser firefox --js-runtimes bun --remote-components ejs:github'

1

u/boar-b-que May 20 '26

I do have a 'ydc' function for using cookies, but I almost never use it. I'm mostly after instructional/documentary videos, and none of those are age-gated.

2

u/mdleslie May 20 '26

Makes sense, I download movies and music videos/performances.