ArcDLP

ArcDLP Website

Open-source desktop video downloader powered by yt-dlp. Paste a URL, pick a quality, download.

Supports YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter/X, SoundCloud, Instagram, and thousands of other sites.

Everything runs locally on your machine - no cloud, no accounts, no tracking.

Download

Download & Install

Download the latest release

Go to the Releases page, scroll down to Assets, and click the file for your system:

• macOS: ArcDLP-x.x.x.dmg
• Windows: ArcDLP-Setup-x.x.x.exe
• Linux: ArcDLP-x.x.x.AppImage

macOS

1. Download the .dmg file
2. Open it and drag ArcDLP to your Applications folder
3. Open ArcDLP

To fix it:

1. Click Done
2. Open System Settings
3. Go to Privacy & Security
4. Scroll down and click Open Anyway next to ArcDLP
5. Enter your password

Windows

1. Download and run the .exe installer
2. Click More info, then click Run anyway
3. The installer will set up ArcDLP and create a shortcut automatically

Linux

1. Download the .AppImage file
2. Make it executable: right-click → Properties → Permissions → check **Allow

1. Double-click to run

Features

• Single video downloads - Fetch video info, preview metadata, choose

• Video codec selection - Choose Auto, H.264, VP9, or AV1 in Settings.

• Playlist support - Paste a playlist URL, select which items to download,

• Instagram saved collections - Paste a saved collection URL, the app scrapes

• Download queue - Sequential processing with per-item progress, retry,

• YouTube sign-in - Access age-restricted, private, and members-only content

• Instagram sign-in - Access your private saved collections through a

• Download history - Quick access to previously fetched videos with cached

• Multi-site compatibility - Works with any site yt-dlp supports. Format

• Update notifications - The app checks for new releases on startup and lets

• Light and dark mode - Follows your system preference. macOS vibrancy

Usage

1. Paste a video or playlist URL and click Fetch
2. Pick a quality (or choose MP3 for audio extraction)
3. Click Add to Queue
4. Downloads are saved to ~/Downloads/ArcDLP by default (changeable in

You can paste and fetch additional URLs while reviewing results. Each fetched video appears in a side panel - click any item to review it, pick a quality, and add it to the queue. Adding a video to the queue automatically loads the next one.

For playlists, you can select/deselect individual items and choose a format for the whole batch before queueing.

To access private or age-restricted YouTube videos, sign in via **Settings > YouTube Account**. Your credentials go directly to Google through their standard login page.

Video Codec

Settings > Video controls which video codec is preferred for downloads:

• Auto (default) - Whatever yt-dlp ranks highest for the requested quality
• H.264 - The most compatible option. Plays in QuickTime, Windows Media

• VP9 - Smaller files than H.264 at the same quality. Saved as WebM
• AV1 - The smallest files, but needs a reasonably modern player or editor

Instagram Saved Collections

yt-dlp supports downloading individual Instagram posts and reels, but it has no extractor for saved collections. ArcDLP bridges this gap with a built-in scraper.

1. Sign in to Instagram via Settings > Instagram Account
2. Paste a saved collection URL (e.g.

1. Click Fetch - the app opens the collection page in a hidden browser

1. It scrolls through the page, collecting all tags with /p/ and

• Sponsor on GitHub
• Buy Me a Coffee

For Developers

Everything below is for people who want to build from source, modify the app, or contribute.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. The codebase is intentionally simple - no frameworks, no build tools, vanilla JS throughout.

Before making changes, read through the code and match existing patterns. A few principles the project follows:

• Keep it simple. If something can be done in 30 lines, don't use a library.
• Resilience first. One failure should never kill the queue. Users should

• Explicit actions only. No auto-fetching, no auto-retrying. Every action

• Let yt-dlp do the work. Don't reimplement what yt-dlp already handles. The

• Multi-site compatibility. Never assume YouTube-specific behavior unless

Getting Started

1. Fork and clone the repo
2. npm install (downloads yt-dlp + ffmpeg automatically) - See details below

1. npm run dev to launch with DevTools - See more details below
2. Make your changes, test across a few different sites
3. Open a PR with a clear description of what changed and why

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/archisvaze/arcdlp.git
cd arcdlp
npm install

Cross-platform builds

Both ffmpeg-static and the yt-dlp postinstall script download platform-specific binaries during npm install. On macOS, this works automatically, no setup needed.

If you're building for a different architecture (e.g. building the Linux x64 AppImage from an ARM machine), set these environment variables before npm install to ensure the correct binaries are downloaded:

Windows (x64):

$env:npm_config_platform = "win32" $env:npm_config_arch = "x64" rm -r -Force node_modules npm install

Linux (x64):

export npm_config_platform=linux export npm_config_arch=x64 rm -rf node_modules bin npm install

Only one binary per platform is downloaded per install. If you need to switch target architectures, delete node_modules and bin and run npm install again with the new env vars.

Development

npm run dev          # macOS / Linux
npm run dev:win      # Windows

This launches the app with DevTools enabled and verbose logging.

Production Builds

npm run build:mac      # macOS - produces .dmg and .zip
npm run build:win      # Windows - produces NSIS installer
npm run build:linux    # Linux - produces AppImage
npm run build:all      # All platforms

Both yt-dlp and ffmpeg binaries are bundled into the built app via extraResources in package.json.

Project Structure

arcdlp/
├── src/
│   ├── main/
│   │   ├── main.js          # Electron main process, IPC, window, history
│   │   ├── preload.js        # Context bridge (window.api)
│   │   ├── ytdlp.js          # yt-dlp integration: spawn, parse, download
│   │   ├── queue.js          # Sequential download queue with per-item state
│   │   ├── cookies.js        # YouTube + Instagram cookie auth
│   │   ├── scraper.js        # Instagram collection scraper (BrowserWindow)
│   │   ├── updater.js        # Update checker via GitHub Releases API
│   │   └── utils.js          # Dev mode flag, logging helpers
│   └── renderer/
│       ├── index.html        # UI structure
│       ├── renderer.js       # UI logic, state, rendering
│       └── index.css         # All styles
├── scripts/
│   ├── postinstall.js        # Downloads yt-dlp binary on npm install
│   └── fix-ffmpeg-win.js     # Renames ffmpeg for Windows builds
├── bin/                      # yt-dlp binary (auto-populated by postinstall)
├── build/                    # App icons (icon.icns, icon.ico, icon.png)
├── package.json
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

How It Works

1. User pastes a URL and clicks Fetch
2. App spawns yt-dlp --dump-json to get video metadata and available formats
3. Result appears in a side panel. User picks a quality preset or audio

1. Click "Add to Queue" - the download is queued, the result is removed from the

1. yt-dlp handles the actual download with --progress-template for structured

1. Completed files are saved to the configured download folder

For playlists, the app uses --flat-playlist --dump-json to stream items one at a time, then queues selected items for download.

For Instagram saved collections, the app opens the collection page in a hidden BrowserWindow, scrolls through it collecting anchor tags () and () via executeJavaScript, then presents the scraped URLs in the playlist picker UI. Each post is then downloaded individually by yt-dlp using the Instagram session cookies.

Free code signing provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation. Only Windows installers built by GitHub Actions from this repository are signed. Signed builds start with the first release after the project is approved.

• Committers and reviewers: Archis Vaze
• Approvers: Archis Vaze

Privacy

ArcDLP has no accounts, analytics or telemetry. It only connects to the sites you download from, the GitHub releases API for the update check, and GitHub when you update yt-dlp from Settings. Full policy: arcdlp.archisvaze.com/privacy

License

MIT

Credits

• yt-dlp - The engine that does all the

• Electron - Desktop app framework
• ffmpeg - Audio/video processing (bundled via

• electron-icon-builder - Made icon with Canva and exported the icon files via electron-icon-builder