Downloading

Click + in the toolbar to open Add Video. Paste a link from YouTube, Nebula or any of the 1,000+ sites yt-dlp supports.

Save to

Which library to add it to. Downloads Folder saves just the video to ~/Downloads as "Title.mp4" without adding it to a library.

Resolution

The highest resolution to download: Best Available, 4K, 1440p, 1080p (default), 720p or 480p.

Quality

Balanced (default), Best (allows 60 fps) or Smaller File. The sheet shows what each means.

YouTube sign-in

Shows whether a sign-in is saved; Change… opens the sign-in settings.

For a playlist link, you can choose to download the whole playlist or just the one video.

The downloads panel

The arrow button in the toolbar shows active downloads with their progress, size and speed. The title appears as soon as yt-dlp has found the video. You can cancel any download.

If a download fails, the panel explains what went wrong in plain language with a button that fixes it: sign in, update the tools, choose a different quality or reconnect a library. Details shows yt-dlp's own output.

How YouTube downloads work

• Videos are saved as H.264 MP4 with AAC audio, so every Mac plays them.
• YouTube downloads are tried signed out first, because YouTube sometimes gives signed-in accounts only a 360p version. Your sign-in is used only when a video needs it (age-restricted, members-only, or YouTube's "confirm you're not a bot" check).
• If YouTube turns a signed-out download away with its bot check, the app goes straight to your sign-in for the next 30 minutes.
• Captions are fetched with the video. If YouTube rate-limits them, the video still finishes and the captions are fetched again a few minutes later.