with Mac terminal recently and youtube-dl, when I try to download videos, they just go to textedit and I can't open them

Right click on one of the downloads, choose Open with... what is the default?

The rest of us do not attempt to download Youtube videos from Terminal, but rather from other visual tools purposely designed for video downloads. Google can help you find these tools.

AHA, get VLC Player...

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

I am no stranger to Terminal, and I still download Youtube videos using a graphical tool that detects and allows me to select the highest available resolution for the video. Use the Terminal if you want, but in either case, the video is getting sent directly to the filesystem, which is the same in Terminal as it is in Finder.

Apple_MacX wrote:

With Mac terminal, when used right, you can download videos fast and easily with a few clicks.

How is that working for you?

Do like most others do, use a tool made for the purpose. It's an old saying that applies here: use the right tool for the job.

macOS Command Line Primer

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/OpenSource/Conceptual/ShellScripting/CommandLInePrimer/CommandLine.html

There are some books on using the macOS command line (generic stuff)

• Learning Unix for OS X
• UNIX for Mac OS Users
• bash - the command shell, HOWEVER, we have been informed that macOS 10.15 Catalina will use zsh will be the default shell, but it at the getting started level behave similar to bash
• The Mac OS X Command Line
• The Mac Command Line with Terminal

Be advised that using a Terminal session has 3 layers

1. Terminal GUI which is an application to display output from programs, and provide keyboard input to programs.
2. The shell, which is responsible for invoking the commands you specify and passing the command line arguments, as well as running shell scripts (although you may not be running the script in the running shell, but rather in a subprocess running another copy of the shell)
3. commands, which are either

• • shell built-in commands (cd, pwd, history, etc...)
  • executable programs that are designed to be invoked from a command line
  • shell scripts that are files containing commands you could be invoking from the command line, but are grouped together because as a group they perform a larger task.

Also, if you are going to get serious about using the Terminal, as in spending more time in the Terminal then any other Mac app, then look at iTerm2 <http://iTerm2.com> as this is an open source macOS terminal emulator that includes the "Kitchen Sink".

I doubt you will be spending that much time in the Terminal., but some of us actually get paid to use a terminal emulator using ssh to make a connection to a remote system and develop Unix based software. If you were going down that path, then there are may hiding in plain sight Terminal features that are often ignored that can make working with remote systems so much easier. I struggle educating people at work to actually look beyond the surface when using Terminal or iTerm2.

VikingOSX wrote:

Bob,

Though Bash will still be available, the default shell in Catalina will become Zsh, which Apple can keep reasonably current.

If Apple_MacX is just learning the command line, then they might as well learn the future and not the past.

I fully understand the dilemma. Stallman puts a GPLv3 license on bash and now Apple cannot ship anything newer than the existing 3.2 version even though bash is up to 5.something.

zsh has an MIT-like license (or so it says), and does not have the restrictions GPLv3 imposes.

So it makes a lot of sense for Apple to switch to zsh as the default shell.

My personal dilemma is that I spend most of my time using iTerm2 on my Mac ssh'ed to Linux, AIX, Solaris, and Microsoft RDC'ed to Cygwin under Windows where I do not control the system configuration. bash is the common shell available. And the shell scripts I write need a consistent that is available on all the platforms, which turns out to be bash. The need to a consistent shell is that many of my scripts get used by other team members, and even if I went to the trouble of putting zsh on my test systems, it might not be there on the ones used by other team members.

So while I would not object switching to zsh, it would be counter productive while I still have a day job 😅

Until then, I'll either compile my own bash or install one via HomeBrew.

Bob,

Though Bash will still be available, the default shell in Catalina will become Zsh, which Apple can keep reasonably current.

In your cross-platform circumstances, I agree with a common version of Bash (that is not circa 2007).

Thanks. :)

Quicktime should be able to handle most videos if you open it with quicktime. You can also install VLC (https://www.videolan.org) if your quicktime is having problems.

I suspect your file-association for MP4 files is broken or that your file isn't properly named with an MP4 extension. You can try right-clicking on your video file and select "open with" and choose Quicktime.