Paste a link. Get the file.

What it does

A front end for yt-dlp that behaves like an app

yt-dlp is the best downloader there is and it is a command line tool. saveme puts a page in front of it: paste, look at what is there, click. Everything the downloader is good at is still there underneath.

Install

Download and run — nothing to set up

The desktop builds are completely self-contained: Python, yt-dlp and a static ffmpeg/ffprobe pair are already inside. Unpack the archive, run the binary, and your browser opens on the app.

Every release also ships SHA256SUMS.txt — check your download against it. Around 300 MB unpacked, most of that ffmpeg.

First run: getting past the security warning

These builds are not code-signed, because that requires paid certificates from Apple and Microsoft. Both systems will warn you once. Here is what you will see and why.

macOS

The app is ad-hoc signed, which is the minimum that runs at all on Apple Silicon. Combined with the quarantine flag macOS puts on any download, the dialog says "saveme is damaged and can't be opened". That is Gatekeeper's wording for unsigned — it is not a corrupt download. Clear the flag once:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/saveme.app

Or open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. The first launch takes about ten seconds while Gatekeeper hashes the bundle; after that it is instant. saveme has no dock icon — its interface is the browser tab — so quit it from the tab, the Quit button, or Activity Monitor.

Windows

SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" → More info → Run anyway. Defender occasionally quarantines unsigned PyInstaller executables as a heuristic false positive; add an exclusion rather than re-downloading.

Linux

tar -xzf saveme-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz
./saveme-<version>-linux-x64/saveme/saveme

Opening a browser automatically needs xdg-utils; without it the URL is printed for you to paste.

Or run it from source

Worth it if you want to upgrade yt-dlp yourself the moment a site changes. Needs Python 3.11+, uv, and ffmpeg on your PATH.

git clone https://github.com/hasithmeth/saveme.git
cd saveme
uv sync
uv run saveme

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8765. Flags you may want: --port 9000, --download-dir ~/Videos, --open.

Instructions

Using it

The basic loop

1. Copy a link — a video, a playlist, or a channel.
2. Paste it into the box and press Extract (Enter submits; Shift+Enter adds a line).
3. Pick a preset on the card that appears, and click Download.
4. Files land in ~/Downloads/saveme unless you change it in Settings.

Format presets

Without ffmpeg, video still downloads but quality is capped at whatever single pre-merged file the site offers — often 360p or 720p — and the audio presets are unavailable. The packaged builds bundle it, so this only applies when running from source. A banner at the top of the app tells you if it is missing.

Sites that need you signed in

Some sites will not serve anything to a client that is not logged in. Export your cookies with a browser extension that writes Netscape format, then point saveme at the file:

SAVEME_COOKIES_FILE=~/cookies.txt uv run saveme

For a packaged build, put that line in a .env file next to the executable. SAVEME_COOKIES_FROM_BROWSER=firefox reads a browser profile directly instead — though recent Chrome versions block this with App-Bound Encryption, so a cookies file is the reliable route.

When extraction works but the download 403s

Some sites judge how your client speaks TLS rather than what headers it sends. The symptom is distinctive: the video details appear fine, then the download itself fails with 403. saveme impersonates a real browser by default to get around this. You can pin it:

SAVEME_IMPERSONATE=chrome:windows-10   # pin a client and OS
SAVEME_IMPERSONATE=off                 # turn it off

Settings worth knowing

The full list is in the README. Every setting is an environment variable, readable from a .env file placed next to the executable.

Reaching it from your phone

saveme binds to loopback and checks the Host header against an allowlist, so simply listening on another interface is not enough — that check is what stops a hostile website from pointing DNS at your machine. Opt in with the address you will actually type:

SAVEME_HOST=192.168.1.20 uv run saveme

Supported sites

If yt-dlp can reach it, saveme can save it

saveme adds no allowlist and no blocklist of its own. Site support is entirely yt-dlp's, which means it is enormous and it is maintained by people who fix extractors within days of a site changing.

The coverage spans mainstream video platforms and their playlists and channels, social networks, news sites and public broadcasters, music and podcast hosts, education and conference platforms, live streams and VOD archives, and adult tube sites. The authoritative list is yt-dlp's own supported-sites page — if a site is on it, pasting its URL into saveme works.

Adult and NSFW sites

Yes — this works, and it is worth being direct about it rather than coy. yt-dlp ships dedicated extractors for adult tube, clip and cam sites, and saveme hands every URL straight to it without inspecting, filtering or judging what you paste.

Three things matter more here than anywhere else, and saveme is built the right way for all three:

Troubleshooting

When something goes wrong

Still stuck? Open an issue on GitHub — but if a particular site fails to extract, check yt-dlp's tracker first, because that is where the fix will come from.

The fine print

saveme downloads nothing by itself

It is a convenience wrapper. Every part of the job that actually matters is done by other people's software: yt-dlp finds the media, picks the formats, and performs every network request and every byte of the download; ffmpeg merges streams and converts audio. What saveme adds is a local web page, a job queue, and some filename handling.

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by yt-dlp, the FFmpeg project, or any website you point it at. All trademarks belong to their owners. Which sites work and when an extractor breaks is decided upstream, not here.

You are responsible for what you download

saveme does not inspect, filter, judge or restrict the URLs you give it. It takes what you type and hands it to yt-dlp. Making sure you have the right to download a given file — and complying with the site's terms of service, copyright law, and any other law that applies where you are — is entirely your own responsibility. Downloading copyrighted material without permission may be illegal where you live. Do not use saveme to infringe copyright, breach a contract, or circumvent access controls.

No warranty, no liability

saveme is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, as stated in the MIT licence. To the maximum extent permitted by law the authors are not liable for anything that follows from using it — lost or overwritten files, a filled disk, suspended accounts, or any legal consequence of what you chose to download. Using this software means you accept that risk yourself.