setup youtube-dl destination to ~/Downloads
youtube-dl Config File

To set a default download location, create a youtube-dl configuration file at:

~/.config/youtube-dl/config


Within this file enter the line:

-o ~/Downloads/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s


You can create this file using the following two commands:

mkdir -p ~/.config/youtube-dl/
echo "-o ~/Downloads/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" &gt; ~/.config/youtube-dl/config


The first command mkdir, creates the folders leading to the configuration file. The second command echo writes the output option into the file.

Options set within your configuration file are applied to every call to youtube-dl. Use the --ignore-config option to disable reading of the configuration file.