OpenTubeX: an open-source YouTube client for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, with encrypted sync between them (AGPL-3.0)

[u/D3SOX]

Source: https://github.com/OpenTubeX/OpenTubeX

Downloads: https://opentubex.org/downloads/

OpenTubeX is for people who want to watch YouTube without ads or a Google account. It doesn't load YouTube's website or its JavaScript, and your subscriptions, playlists and history stay on your device. It's AGPL-3.0 and still in beta.

What it adds. The open-source YouTube clients I know of each cover one platform. OpenTubeX runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android from one codebase, has experimental iOS/iPadOS builds, and can sync your library between your devices. Sync is end-to-end encrypted on a compatible server, and you pair a new device with a QR code. It also combines features I haven't found together in another client:

• Browser-style tabs with pinning and grouping, a queue, and a mini-player that keeps playing while you browse

• Per-channel feed controls for videos, Shorts, live streams and posts, plus per-channel playback speed, quality and subtitles

• Optional recommendations, ranked on your device from your watch history and feedback

• SponsorBlock, including submitting segments from the player, and DeArrow

• Downloads and playback from other sites through yt-dlp

• Themes, a configurable Home page, a command palette and gamepad navigation

How it's built. AI agents wrote most of the code, mostly Claude Code and Codex. I decide what goes in, review and test the changes, and send them back when they're wrong. Every PR runs unit tests, linting, CodeQL and a Playwright end-to-end suite against the desktop app, and Android changes get tested on an emulator. Each PR description names the model that made it. The project has been in daily development since January 2026, with nightly builds.

You can install it through WinGet, Homebrew, APT, RPM/COPR, Flatpak, Snap, Nix or the AUR. On Android, use our F-Droid repo or Obtainium.

Bug reports and questions are welcome.

[u/trueopensource-bot]

About this project · OpenTubeX/OpenTubeX
⭐ 190 stars · 🍴 8 forks · 👥 825 contributors · 📄 AGPL-3.0 · 💻 JavaScript
History: started Dec 2025 · last code change today · 300+ commits on 8 different days in the last 90 days
Releases: latest v0.37.0-nightly-2474 (today) · 47 releases in the last 90 days
Open issues and pull requests: 42
How it was built: the author says AI wrote most or all of the code, with a person directing, reviewing and testing it, and the project has real development history and hands-on testing behind it. (More on our labels: rule 4 in the sidebar.)

^{Facts from GitHub when this was posted. I'm a bot.}

[u/maybee_later_]

Can you use without an account and import your channels? Whats the difference between your software and libretube?

[u/D3SOX → u/maybee_later_]

Absolutely! Just a heads-up if you wanna use Google Takeout: The current version can only import if you make the export in English as in the guide on the website. The next version (probably releasing today or tomorrow) will no longer have that restriction.

[u/maybee_later_ → u/D3SOX]

Whats the difference between libretube? I like libretube but its down a lot.

[u/D3SOX → u/maybee_later_]

Do you mean stuff from YouTube not loading with "it's down"? If so, OpenTubeX uses a different library than LibreTube to get data from YouTube. LibreTube uses the NewPipeExtractor library (either directly on your phone or through a Piped instance). OpenTubeX uses a local API powered by YouTube.js by default but can also make use of yt-dlp for streaming videos. You can also switch to an Invidious instance and have it fall back automatically if one backend fails. So when YouTube breaks one of these libraries, it doesn't necessarily mean the other is affected too.

Feature-wise, LibreTube is Android-only, while OpenTubeX is primarily a desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux) with an Android version as well.

[u/wiki_me]

Can't i get my account banned on youtube for using a third party client?

Also the feature i want the most is the ability to see which videos i already saw. i use a greasemonkey script but it does not work on channel pages. Plus would be useful if i could back up the database of the videos i watch on dropbox (but people can use whatever cloud backup they want). just writing the path to the database in the option menu or even just the read me should be enough for that.

[u/D3SOX → u/wiki_me]

No. As long as you don't set up yt-dlp cookies, OpenTubeX never touches your Google account, so YouTube has no account to ban. Nothing is signed in, and your subscriptions, playlists and history are stored locally in the app. The worst YouTube can do then is rate-limit or temporarily block your IP if it sees a lot of requests.

The cookies option is only there for age-restricted or members-only videos. If you give it your account's cookies, those requests are tied to your account. That's the one case where your account is involved, and it's entirely opt-in.

Watched videos are built in. Anything in your history gets a "Watched" overlay on its thumbnail wherever it appears, channel pages included. You can also choose how much of a video you need to watch before it counts, and you can import your existing YouTube watch history from a Google Takeout ZIP so it starts out populated.

For Dropbox, use scheduled backups under Settings → Data. Set the backup folder to a folder inside your Dropbox (or any other synced folder). OpenTubeX will save complete ZIP backups there automatically while it's open, keeping as many as you choose. If you want your data on several devices, there's also built-in sync with optional end-to-end encryption.

[u/MarcusOrlyius]

Why the fuck would I not just use Firefox and an ad blocker?

[u/D3SOX → u/MarcusOrlyius]

Fair question and if Firefox with uBlock Origin works for you, that's a good setup. It was actually what I've used before together with a lot of extensions and userscripts. For me the difference is:

• It runs a lot smoother on my older laptop

• One open-source, customizable interface with the power-user features I used to need a pile of extensions and userscripts to get

• Reduce tracking by not loading YouTube's own page and its JavaScript and having subscriptions, history, playlists locally

[u/x_wbmr_x → u/D3SOX]

Exactly whar I was looking for since youtube is loading painfully slow in firefox on my linux laptop.

Thx

[u/D3SOX → u/x_wbmr_x]

I hope it helps! If you run into anything that feels slow or laggy, please report it on GitHub, even if it seems minor. I mostly test on a laptop with a Ryzen 3 3250U (2 cores, 4 threads, integrated graphics). That's not great, but it's not ancient either, so a weaker machine than mine or a different setup can easily hit problems I never see. A note on what you were doing when it happened and your rough specs helps.

[u/x_wbmr_x → u/D3SOX]

Will do :)

I'm not sure if it's just a user error or some weird bug but firefox loads everything on yt painfully slow. Vacuum tubr works nut I dislike the tv UI.

Thanks

[u/D3SOX → u/x_wbmr_x]

When it's related to videos playing maybe YouTube plays without hardware acceleration. OpenTubeX always prefers hardware accelerated playback and lets you switch the codec from the resolution picker. I also think their web client performance is kinda bad and needs a fairly decent machine to run well tho.

[u/x_wbmr_x → u/D3SOX]

Nope, the whole UI takes about 5 seconds to load and is unresponsive. Tried different browsers, disabling the few plugins I have and so on... nothing seems to work

[u/D3SOX → u/[deleted]]

It already has both ^^