Video Downloader MCP

Live deployment

• MCP endpoint: https://video-downloader-mcp.onrender.com/mcp

• Health: https://video-downloader-mcp.onrender.com/health

• Technical brief: https://video-mcp-brief.bramble-cannon.workers.dev

A public, no-auth MCP server that lets ChatGPT download videos and audio from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, Reddit, Vimeo, Twitch clips, Dailymotion, and many other sites. Powered by yt-dlp and ffmpeg, packaged for Render's free Docker tier.

ChatGPT cannot receive a binary file through an MCP tool. The tools download the media to the server and return a temporary direct link. The user clicks the link to save the file. Links expire automatically (60 minutes by default).

Related MCP server: video-link-analyzer

Tools

Add it to ChatGPT

1. Open ChatGPT → Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Developer mode.

2. Click Create / Add custom connector.

3. Name it Video Downloader.

4. MCP server URL: https://<your-service>.onrender.com/mcp

5. Authentication: No authentication.

6. In a chat, ask: "Download this video: https://..." and open the link ChatGPT returns.

Custom connectors require a ChatGPT plan that supports them. The server must be reachable over public HTTPS, which Render provides.

Deploy on Render (free tier)

The repo includes a Dockerfile and render.yaml.

Blueprint

1. Push this repo to GitHub.

2. In Render, choose New → Blueprint and select the repo.

3. Apply the blueprint. Render builds the Docker image and deploys it.

4. Copy the service URL and use https://<service>.onrender.com/mcp in ChatGPT.

Manual Docker web service

• Environment: Docker

• Plan: Free

• Dockerfile path: ./Dockerfile

• Health check path: /health

• No disk, no database, no auth needed.

Render sets PORT and RENDER_EXTERNAL_URL automatically. The app binds to 0.0.0.0:$PORT.

Free instances spin down after inactivity, so the first request after a pause can take 30–60 seconds while the container starts. Temporary files live on the instance's ephemeral disk, so download links stop working if the service restarts or spins down before the link is used. Download and open links promptly.

Configuration

All settings are optional environment variables.

YouTube / Instagram limitations

YouTube aggressively blocks datacenter IPs. On a Render IP you may see "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot". Options:

• Supply cookies from an account via YTDLP_COOKIES (Netscape cookies.txt format).

• Route downloads through a residential/mobile proxy via YTDLP_PROXY.

• Try again later; YouTube's blocking is inconsistent.

Instagram and Vimeo sometimes require a logged-in session for public posts. Cookies fix those cases too. TikTok works well with the default browser impersonation.

Live streams are rejected. Private, paid, DRM-protected, and login-only content cannot be downloaded.

Public technical brief

site/index.html is a self-contained page explaining the architecture, tools, request lifecycle, limits, security model, and deployment. To publish it as a static Cloudflare Worker:

python scripts/build_cloudflare_worker.py
cd cloudflare
npx wrangler deploy --temporary

Wrangler's --temporary mode creates a public preview account without a Cloudflare login. The preview account can be claimed within 60 minutes to keep the URL long-term.

Local development

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
# ffmpeg is required for merging video+audio and MP3 extraction
.venv/bin/python -m app.main

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ for the landing page and http://127.0.0.1:8000/health for health. The MCP endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp.

Run the tests (the end-to-end test generates a local video and downloads it through the MCP protocol):

.venv/bin/python -m pytest

Security notes

This server is intentionally public and unauthenticated, as requested. Anyone with the URL can download media through it. It includes:

• SSRF protection: only http/https, hostnames are resolved, and private, loopback, link-local, and reserved addresses are rejected.

• A global hourly rate limit, a concurrency limit, file-size caps, and storage caps.

• Unguessable capability URLs for temporary files.

• No shell execution of user input; yt-dlp runs as an argument list.

For a private deployment, put the service behind a secret path or an access token at the proxy/CDN layer. Never enable ALLOW_PRIVATE_URLS on a public server.

Updating yt-dlp

Sites change constantly. Update the pinned yt-dlp version in requirements.txt and redeploy regularly:

.venv/bin/pip install -U yt-dlp
.venv/bin/pip freeze | grep yt-dlp

License

MIT. This tool is for downloading content you have the right to access and use. Respect each platform's terms of service and applicable copyright law.