Media Downloads
Downloading video and audio through the bundled yt-dlp and ffmpeg, with format selection, subtitles, metadata, and thumbnails.
MacGet can download video and audio from streaming sites using a bundled yt-dlp and ffmpeg. Ordinary links are unaffected — they still download as plain HTTP files through the multi-threaded engine.
Off by default
Media extraction is disabled until you turn it on in Settings → Media, which also carries a terms-of-service acknowledgement. With it off, yt-dlp is never invoked.
How a link is classified
MacGet uses a deliberately conservative host-based classifier rather than
guessing from the URL shape. Recognised hosts include YouTube (youtube.com,
youtu.be, youtube-nocookie.com), Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, TikTok,
SoundCloud, Streamable, and Reddit video.
Anything not on the list downloads as a normal file. This is intentional: a false positive would route a plain download through an extractor that cannot handle it, which is far more annoying than a missed one.
Choosing a format
When a media link is recognised, MacGet queries the available formats and shows a picker with resolution, container, and codec. Pick one and the download proceeds; ffmpeg merges separate video and audio streams when the site serves them apart, which is normal for higher resolutions.
Extras
Configured in Settings → Media, and applied to every media download:
| Option | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Write subtitles | Off | Downloads subtitle tracks alongside the media |
| Subtitle languages | en | Comma-separated, e.g. en,es, or all |
| Embed metadata | Off | Writes title, uploader, and date into the file |
| Write thumbnail | Off | Saves the poster image next to the download |
Progress reporting
Media downloads report progress from yt-dlp rather than from MacGet's chunk engine, because the extractor owns the transfer. You'll see throughput and percentage, but not the per-chunk breakdown that HTTP downloads show — there are no MacGet-managed chunks to display.
Limitations
- No multi-threaded chunking. Extraction is handled by yt-dlp, so MacGet's adaptive concurrency doesn't apply.
- Sites change. Extractors break when sites change their players. Since yt-dlp is bundled with the app, fixes arrive with MacGet updates rather than independently.
- Some content will not download. DRM-protected streams are not extractable, and MacGet makes no attempt to circumvent that.
Your responsibility
MacGet is a general-purpose tool. Downloading content you don't have the right to copy may violate a site's terms of service or copyright law where you live. That's your call to make, and the acknowledgement in Settings exists so it is a deliberate one.
The Inspector
The panel that shows a download's live throughput, the pieces it was split into, and exactly why the engine settled on the connection count it did.
Book Catalogs
Browse and search Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and any OPDS feed from inside MacGet, then send a book straight to the download queue.