Douyin Video Downloader

Parse Douyin share links and download videos without watermarks.

Note: The original version used Node.js. Because of iSH environment limitations, it has been converted to Python.

Dependencies

• Python 3
• requests library (pip3 install requests)

Environment Variables (Transcription Feature)

• VOLC_APP_KEY - Volcano Engine App Key
• VOLC_ACCESS_KEY - Volcano Engine Access Key

Workflow

1. Parse Share Link

When the user provides Douyin share text or a link, extract the video metadata:

python3 scripts/parse_douyin.py "<share text or link>"

Input examples:

• Full share text: 7.43 FuL:/ You know what? It really is pretty nice. https://v.douyin.com/iFDbjn2M/ Copy this link...
• Just the URL: https://v.douyin.com/iFDbjn2M/

Output (JSON):

{
  "video_id": "7445842287652441376",
  "title": "You_know_what_It_really_is_pretty_nice",
  "download_url": "https://...play.../video/...",
  "raw_url": "https://...playwm.../video/...",
  "share_url": "https://v.douyin.com/iFDbjn2M/",
  "redirected_url": "https://www.iesdouyin.com/share/video/7445842287652441376",
  "iesdouyin_url": "https://www.iesdouyin.com/share/video/7445842287652441376"
}

Key fields:

• download_url - Watermark-free version (playwm to play)
• title - Sanitized video description, safe for filenames
• video_id - Unique video identifier

2. Download Video

Use the download_url from step 1:

python3 scripts/download_video.py "<download_url>" "<output_path>"

Example:

python3 scripts/download_video.py "https://aweme.snssdk.com/aweme/v1/play/?video_id=..." "./downloads/You_know_what_It_really_is_pretty_nice.mp4"

Output:

{
  "status": "success",
  "path": "./downloads/You_know_what_It_really_is_pretty_nice.mp4"
}

Progress is written to stderr during download.

3. Transcribe Audio

Transcribe audio or video to text using Volcano Engine ASR (Doubao Speech):

python3 scripts/transcribe_audio.py "<audio_or_video_file>" --app-key "$VOLC_APP_KEY" --access-key "$VOLC_ACCESS_KEY"

Parameters:

• --app-key - Volcano Engine App Key (required, or set the VOLC_APP_KEY environment variable)
• --access-key - Volcano Engine Access Key (required, or set the VOLC_ACCESS_KEY environment variable)
• --resource-id - Resource ID: volc.bigasr.auc_turbo (flash) or volc.seedasr.auc (standard)
• --mode - Mode: auto | flash | standard (default: auto)
• --out - Output JSON file path (optional)
• --text-out - Output text file path (optional)

Example:

# Using env vars
export VOLC_APP_KEY="your_app_key"
export VOLC_ACCESS_KEY="your_access_key"
python3 scripts/transcribe_audio.py "./downloads/video.mp4" --mode flash

# Or inline
python3 scripts/transcribe_audio.py "./downloads/video.mp4" \
  --app-key "your_app_key" \
  --access-key "your_access_key" \
  --resource-id "volc.bigasr.auc_turbo" \
  --mode flash \
  --text-out "./downloads/transcript.txt"

Output (JSON):

{
  "status": "success",
  "mode": "flash",
  "result_text": "When you feel that fate has been unfair to you, you might want to listen to what Tong Guowei said to Long Keduo...",
  "result": { ... }
}

Getting API credentials:

1. Visit the Volcano Engine Console
2. Create a speech recognition (ASR) application
3. Get the App Key and Access Key from the application settings

Complete Example

# Step 1: Parse
result=$(python3 scripts/parse_douyin.py "7.43 FuL:/ You know what? It really is pretty nice. https://v.douyin.com/iFDbjn2M/")

# Step 2: Extract fields
download_url=$(echo "$result" | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['download_url'])")
title=$(echo "$result" | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['title'])")

# Step 3: Download
python3 scripts/download_video.py "$download_url" "./downloads/${title}.mp4"

Notes

• Watermark removal: The script automatically converts playwm URLs to play URLs
• Title sanitization: Removes invalid filename characters (\/:*?"<>|)
• Both video and note: Supports both /video/ and /note/ URLs
• Mobile UA required: Uses an iPhone user agent for compatibility
• Timeout: 60 seconds per download
• Progress: Displays progress every 10% on stderr
• Filename length: Use short filenames (English or pinyin) for saved files. Long filenames with URL encoding may break minis:// preview links.

Examples

• Bad: High_Definition_Lens_41_years_old_Qi_Xi_How_is_her_condition_The_Role_of_Film_Beijing_Premiere.mp4
• Good: qixi_short.mp4

Error Handling

Common errors:

• No valid share link found - Invalid or missing URL in input
• Failed to access the share link - Network error or blocked request
• Failed to parse video information from HTML - Page structure changed (script needs an update)
• Download timed out - Network timeout (try again)

When errors occur, scripts return JSON with { "status": "error", "error": "<message>" } on stderr and exit with code 1.