O'Reilly Offline Downloader & Library

A powerful, high-performance Python CLI for downloading O'Reilly Learning courses, books, and audiobooks for offline personal use. It supports video courses, EPUB generation, audiobook downloads, interactive web readers, transcripts, and a premium offline library dashboard.

Architecture: The project is built as a modern Python package managed with uv, providing fast dependency management, clean installation, and cross-platform support.

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✨ Features

Downloading

• Download complete O'Reilly video courses
• Download audiobooks as high-quality .m4a
• Download books as standard .epub
• Generate interactive offline HTML web readers
• Extract timestamped video transcripts
• Transcripts-only mode for fast text extraction

Offline Library

• Premium Apple Books-inspired dashboard
• Automatic library indexing
• Fast search
• Reading progress
• Persistent custom tags
• Keyboard navigation
• Dark & Light themes
• Automatic cover image detection

Downloader Engine

• API-first resolver
• Selenium fallback
• Manual login mode
• Persistent browser profiles
• Parallel downloads
• Dead Letter Queue logging
• Detailed debug logging

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🚀 Quick Start

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• uv
• ffmpeg

Install uv

# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

# Linux/macOS
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Install ffmpeg

# Windows
choco install ffmpeg

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

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Usage

Download a Course

uv run oreilly-dl "COURSE_URL"

Download an EPUB

uv run oreilly-dl "BOOK_URL"

Download with Interactive Web Reader

uv run oreilly-dl "BOOK_URL" --web-viewer

Books downloaded using --web-viewer are automatically registered inside the Offline Library Dashboard.

Download an Audiobook

uv run oreilly-dl "AUDIOBOOK_URL" --audiobook

Transcripts Only

uv run oreilly-dl "COURSE_URL" --transcripts-only

Manual Login

uv run oreilly-dl --manual-login

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🏛️ Offline Library Dashboard

The Offline Library Dashboard provides a centralized interface for browsing, organizing, and reading downloaded books.

📸 Screenshot Gallery

Unified Library Dashboard

Metadata Inspector Drawer

Interactive Local eBook Reader

Features

• Apple Books-inspired design
• Fast search
• Metadata inspector
• Custom tag editing
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Responsive layout
• Automatic cover detection

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key Action

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↑ / ↓ Navigate books Space Toggle details drawer Enter Open reader / or Ctrl+K Focus search ? Show keyboard shortcuts

🚀 Launching the Offline Library

After downloading one or more books with the --web-viewer option, the Offline Library Dashboard is generated under:

downloads/
└── books/
    ├── data/
    ├── index.html
    ├── library_state.json
    ├── serve_library.py
    ├── start_library.bat
    └── start_library.sh

To start the local library server:

• Windows: Double-click start_library.bat
• Linux/macOS: Run ./start_library.sh

The launcher starts a lightweight local web server and automatically opens the Offline Library Dashboard in your default browser.

Note: The dashboard is generated for books downloaded using the --web-viewer option.

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📁 Output Structure

downloads/
├── books/
│   ├── data/                    # Downloaded EPUBs & Web Reader assets
│   ├── index.html               # Offline Library Dashboard
│   ├── library_state.json       # Library metadata & custom tags
│   ├── serve_library.py         # Local HTTP server
│   ├── start_library.bat        # Windows launcher
│   └── start_library.sh         # Linux/macOS launcher
├── courses/                     # Video & audio course downloads
└── audiobooks/                  # Audiobook downloads (.m4a)

The launcher scripts provide the easiest way to start the Offline Library Dashboard:

• Windows: start_library.bat
• Linux/macOS: ./start_library.sh

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🧪 Running Tests

uv run pytest

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⚙️ Command Line Help

uv run oreilly-dl --help

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🔧 Troubleshooting

Authentication Issues

uv run oreilly-dl --manual-login

Video Download Issues

Verify that ffmpeg is installed and available in your system PATH.

Debug Logging

uv run oreilly-dl "COURSE_URL" --debug

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This project is intended for educational purposes and personal offline archiving. Users are responsible for complying with O'Reilly Media's Terms of Service and applicable copyright laws.

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📄 License

MIT License.