Fixing YouTube HTTP 403 (Forbidden) in yt-dlp (2026)
Recently, many users have encountered the following error:

ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

This happens even when:

Using the latest yt-dlp
Providing valid YouTube cookies
Enabling a JavaScript runtime (node)
Using --remote-components ejs:github
Solution

Force yt-dlp to use the web, web_embedded, and tv player clients instead of the default client.

Bash Example
yt-dlp \
  --cookies cookies.txt \
  --remote-components ejs:github \
  --js-runtimes node \
  --extractor-args "youtube:player_client=web_embedded,web,tv" \
  -f "bestvideo*+bestaudio/best" \
  --merge-output-format mp4 \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID"

If you only want audio:

yt-dlp \
  --cookies cookies.txt \
  --remote-components ejs:github \
  --js-runtimes node \
  --extractor-args "youtube:player_client=web_embedded,web,tv" \
  -f bestaudio \
  -x \
  --audio-format mp3 \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID"
Node.js Example
const yt = spawn('yt-dlp', [
  '--cookies', 'cookies.txt',
  '--remote-components', 'ejs:github',
  '--js-runtimes', 'node',
  '--extractor-args',
  'youtube:player_client=web_embedded,web,tv',
  '--no-playlist',
  '--concurrent-fragments', '4',
  '-f', 'bestvideo*+bestaudio/best',
  '--merge-output-format', 'mp4',
  '-o', filePath,
  url
]);
Why This Works

Some recent YouTube updates cause certain player clients (especially the default/iOS-based ones) to receive HTTP 403 Forbidden responses when downloading media streams.

By forcing yt-dlp to use:

web_embedded,web,tv

the generated download URLs are accepted by Google's video servers, allowing downloads to proceed normally.

Requirements
Latest yt-dlp
Valid cookies.txt
Node.js installed (for JS challenge solving)
yt_dlp_ejs
ffmpeg
Result

Before:

ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

After:

[download] 100% of video
[download] 100% of audio
[Merger] Merging formats...

Downloads should complete successfully without the HTTP 403 error.