mstcvk/mc-download-manager

A fast, open-source download manager for macOS.
Captures Safari, Chrome and Firefox downloads, accelerates them with up to 16 parallel connections and downloads videos from web pages.

🇹🇷 Türkçe · Releases · Homebrew · Build

_{▶ Watch the 1-minute overview · Türkçe video}

Everything ships in a single .app: the Safari extension, the Chrome and Firefox extensions, yt-dlp and ffmpeg are bundled. Open the DMG, drag the app to Applications, done. The interface is in English and Turkish (follows the system language).

• Multi-connection downloads — files are split into HTTP Range requests (8 connections by default, 1–16 configurable). Falls back to a single stream when the server does not support ranges; adapts the connection count on 429/503 throttling.
• Pause / resume — segment state is persisted on disk, so downloads continue where they left off even after a restart.
• Browser integration — one shared WebExtension for Safari, Google Chrome, Brave and Firefox. A step-by-step setup wizard handles each browser one at a time (extension files are placed in ~/Downloads/MC Download Manager/Browser Plugins/). The browser download is cancelled and handed to the app together with cookies, Referer and User-Agent; captured file types are configurable. If the app is not running, the extension starts it (native messaging) and hands the download over once it is up; if it cannot, the browser keeps the download.
• Video downloads — <video>, .m3u8 and .mpd streams on the page are detected; "Download video from this page" uses the bundled yt-dlp (with ffmpeg merging). Default output is MP4 up to 1080p (container and resolution configurable). Browser cookies are passed to yt-dlp, and an in-app sign-in window handles age-restricted videos. yt-dlp can be updated from GitHub with one click.
• Clipboard — copy a link and the app asks whether to download it; paste a link into the main window with ⌘V.
• UI — sidebar categories (Images, Music, Video, Apps, Documents, Archives…), sortable table, search, an IDM-style per-download window (connection table, segment bar, auto-close option), menu-bar item, notifications.
• Lives in the menu bar — opens at login (enabled after the first-run setup), starts without a window and without a Dock icon; the browser bridge stays up so extensions never need you to open the app. Closing the window keeps it running; quit from the menu bar icon.

Homebrew

brew install --cask mstcvk/tap/mc-download-manager

Update with brew upgrade --cask mc-download-manager. Then continue with the browser steps (2 and 3) below.

Manual

1. Download the DMG from Releases, open it and drag MC Download Manager.app to Applications.
   • Builds that are not notarized trigger a Gatekeeper warning on first launch: System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ "Open Anyway".
2. Safari: Safari ▸ Settings ▸ Extensions ▸ MC Download Manager → enable and allow for all websites.
   • For ad-hoc signed builds Safari also requires Develop ▸ Allow Unsigned Extensions (not needed for Developer ID signed builds).
3. Chrome: open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, choose Load unpacked and select the folder shown in the app under Settings ▸ Browser ▸ Show Folder (ChromeExtension inside the app bundle).
4. Firefox: Settings ▸ Browser Extensions ▸ Open Setup Wizard… ▸ Add to Firefox. The add-on is signed by Mozilla and bundled with the app; Firefox asks for confirmation once and keeps it installed (Firefox 140 or later).

The app runs a tiny HTTP bridge on 127.0.0.1:48213 that only accepts requests from browser extensions (Origin check).

Requirements: macOS 13+, Xcode 15+, xcodegen (brew install xcodegen).

scripts/fetch-tools.sh   # downloads universal yt-dlp and ffmpeg (arm64 + x86_64) into Tools/
scripts/build.sh         # Release build, code signing and build/MC Download Manager <version>.dmg

For development run xcodegen generate and open MCDownloadManager.xcodeproj.

Developer ID signing and notarization:

CODESIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" NOTARY_PROFILE=notary scripts/build.sh

The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/build.yml) builds a DMG on every push and attaches it to the release on v* tags.

After a release's DMG is uploaded, scripts/update-cask.sh bumps Casks/mc-download-manager.rb in mstcvk/homebrew-tap to the version in project.yml (checksum taken from the release asset).

Chrome only installs extensions silently from the Chrome Web Store, so until the extension is published the app guides users through Developer mode ▸ Load unpacked. To publish:

scripts/pack-extension.sh      # → build/mc-download-manager-chrome-<version>.zip

Upload the zip in the Chrome Web Store developer console, then set BrowserIntegration.chromeWebStoreURL to the store page; "Install" will open it directly.

Release Firefox only installs add-ons signed by Mozilla. scripts/build.sh runs scripts/pack-firefox.sh, which builds the Firefox variant of the manifest (background.scripts, browser_specific_settings.gecko) and, when AMO API credentials are available, signs it as an unlisted add-on (once per version) and bundles it as FirefoxExtension.xpi. Store the credentials in the login keychain:

security add-generic-password -s mc-download-manager-amo -a issuer -w 'user:…'
security add-generic-password -s mc-download-manager-amo -a secret -w '…'

Without credentials the unsigned add-on is bundled; Firefox can then only load it temporarily via about:debugging.

App/Sources/DownloadManager/
  Engine/SegmentedDownloader.swift   multi-connection HTTP downloader (URLSession, Range, adaptive concurrency)
  Engine/VideoDownloader.swift       yt-dlp wrapper (progress parsing, cookie file)
  Engine/DownloadStore.swift         queue, persistence, speed measurement
  Engine/ClipboardWatcher.swift      clipboard monitoring and ⌘V handling
  Server/LocalServer.swift           minimal HTTP server on Network.framework
  Server/ServerController.swift      /ping /download /downloads /action endpoints
  Views/                             SwiftUI (main window, download window, settings)
App/Resources/Localizable.xcstrings  English (base) + Turkish strings
SafariExtension/                     Safari Web Extension target (native messaging launches the app)
NativeHost/                          native messaging host for Chrome/Brave/Edge/Firefox (launches the app; registered by NativeHostRegistry)
Extension/                           shared WebExtension (manifest v3, background, content, popup, _locales)
scripts/                             fetch-tools.sh, build.sh, pack-extension.sh, update-cask.sh, make_icons.swift
project.yml                          xcodegen project spec

The bridge only answers requests whose Origin is a browser-extension origin (chrome-extension://, safari-web-extension://, moz-extension://) and whose Host is the loopback address; requests from ordinary web pages (including Origin: null) are rejected, and CORS headers are only sent to extension origins.

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Translations live in App/Resources/Localizable.xcstrings and Extension/_locales/.

The code is licensed under the MIT License (see LICENSE). Bundled binaries keep their own licenses: yt-dlp (Unlicense) and FFmpeg (static build from martin-riedl.de, GPL). If you distribute builds with the GPL ffmpeg binary, keep the source-availability obligation in mind, or point scripts/fetch-tools.sh to an LGPL build.