Before you install and run Yoink, make sure your host machine has the right tools in place. Yoink is a Go binary that shells out to external programs for media work, so the tools you install directly determine which features are available.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/coah80/yoink/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Required dependencies
At a minimum, you need three things: the Go toolchain to build Yoink from source,yt-dlp to handle downloads from 1000+ sites, and ffmpeg to process, convert, and compress video. Without these three, Yoink will not start successfully — ffprobe (bundled with ffmpeg) is also checked at startup.
yt-dlp
Required. The core download engine. Handles video, audio, playlists, and clips from YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, and 1000+ other sites.Install:
pip install yt-dlp or grab a pre-built binary from the yt-dlp releases page.ffmpeg + ffprobe
Required. Used for video processing, format conversion, compression, and merging audio/video streams.
ffprobe is checked at startup and ships with ffmpeg.Install via your system package manager: apt install ffmpeg, brew install ffmpeg, etc.gallery-dl
Optional. Enables the image gallery download feature. Without it, gallery requests will be rejected. Install via
pip install gallery-dl.Python + Whisper
Optional. Required for local transcription. Yoink looks for
python3 with the whisper module (pip install openai-whisper). Alternatively, set OPENAI_API_KEY to use the OpenAI API instead.Go toolchain
Yoink must be compiled from source. Thego.mod file declares the minimum version:
Disk space
Yoink requires at least 5 GB of free disk space on the volume where its temp directory lives. This limit is enforced at startup and checked before each job — if available space drops below this threshold, new jobs will be rejected. All temporary files are written under/var/tmp/yoink, which is created automatically on first run. The subdirectories created there are:
| Subdirectory | Purpose |
|---|---|
/var/tmp/yoink/downloads | In-progress and completed downloads |
/var/tmp/yoink/convert | Format conversion working files |
/var/tmp/yoink/compress | Video compression working files |
/var/tmp/yoink/playlists | Playlist zip archives |
/var/tmp/yoink/galleries | Image gallery downloads |
/var/tmp/yoink/uploads | User-uploaded files |
/var/tmp/yoink/bot | Discord bot job files |
/var/tmp/yoink/transcribe | Transcription working files |
Platform support
Yoink’s Makefile includes build targets for three platforms. Linux is the primary deployment target and the one most tested in production.| Platform | Architecture | Makefile target | Output binary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | amd64 | make linux | yoink-linux |
| macOS | native | make build | yoink |
| Windows | amd64 | make windows | yoink.exe |
The ffmpeg path is hardcoded in the downloader as
/usr/bin/ffmpeg. On macOS or Windows you may need to ensure ffmpeg is installed at that path, or symlink it accordingly.Feature tiers at a glance
Minimum
Go 1.24+, yt-dlp, ffmpegCovers: downloads, conversion, compression, clips, playlists.
Full features
Minimum + gallery-dl, Python + Whisper, OPENAI_API_KEYAdds: image galleries, local and cloud transcription.
YouTube fast-path
Any tier + COBALT_APIS env varAdds: Cobalt API fallback for YouTube when yt-dlp bot-detection triggers.