
Red is a YouTube client for the Linux desktop: a native app to watch YouTube without ads,
with a smart TV mode, a YouTube Music mode, SponsorBlock, media keys, a mini player and a
built-in YouTube downloader. Sign in with your Google account and your subscriptions,
history and recommendations work as on the website, in a lightweight window instead of a
browser tab.
Three ways to watch, one window:
- Desktop mode: the full YouTube website, signed in, in light, dark or system theme, with picture-in-picture style mini player
- TV mode: the YouTube Leanback interface from smart TVs and consoles, full screen, driven by keyboard, mouse or gamepad controller, ideal for a media center, living room PC or handheld
- Music mode: YouTube Music in the same window, a music player with media keys, tray and MPRIS controls, background play, and audio downloads one click away
Watch without interruptions:
- Ad blocker built in: video ads, banners and sponsored feed items are removed before the page renders, and playback is never touched
- Tracker blocking, SponsorBlock to skip sponsor segments, intros and reminders, Return YouTube Dislike counts, and a switch to hide Shorts
Download what you watch:
- YouTube video downloader for any video, playlist or channel, as MP4, MKV or WebM up to 4K
- YouTube to MP3: save audio only as MP3, M4A, Opus, FLAC or WAV for music
- Subtitles, thumbnail, metadata and chapters embedded; sponsor segments cut out on request
- Playlists detected from any link, entries picked one by one, a queue with pause, resume and retry
- Your YouTube sign-in is reused, so age-restricted videos and anything your account can watch download too
Made for the desktop:
- Media keys and MPRIS media controls, a tray icon with play, pause and skip, the screen kept awake while a video plays
- Hardware video decoding, native Wayland and X11, notifications when a download finishes, single instance that opens YouTube links from the command line
Red is a lightweight alternative to the browser tab, to Electron YouTube apps and to a
separate downloader. Everything works on any Linux distribution.