Downie 4

I referenced Downie twice earlier today — once in my item linking to Charlie Monroe (developer of Downie) writing about the indie app business, and earlier in my post about using Downie to download the MP3 from Jony Ive’s interview on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.

I somehow hadn’t heard of (or more likely, just hadn’t noticed) Downie until a few weeks ago, when I first came across Monroe’s blog post, via Michael Tsai. Here’s the pitch for Downie, from its website:

Ever wished you could save a video from the Internet? Search no more, Downie is what you’re looking for. Easily download videos from thousands of different sites.

That’s it. You give it a web page URL, and Downie will download any video (or audio) files embedded on the page. Downie offers all sorts of convenience features, like browser extensions, post-processing, and more. But the main interface is super obvious and easy.

For years, I’ve used the open source yt-dlp command-line tool for this task (and before yt-dlp, its predecessor, youtube-dl). When I saw Downie, I thought to myself, “That looks cool, but I don’t really download that many video or audio files to justify paying for a commercial app.” But then I slapped myself (figuratively) and I realized I should at least try it. I’m so glad I did. It’s like using Transmit instead of the command-line tools for secure FTP connections. It’s cool that the Mac has a Unix terminal interface and support for zillions of free and open source utilities, but the point of using a Mac is to use great Mac apps. And Downie is a great Mac app.

What I’ve found over the last month isn’t just that I enjoy using Downie far more than invoking yt-dlp, but that I use Downie more often than I used yt-dlp, because it’s so much easier and more reliable. For example, when I wrote about Fox Sports’s new scorebug that debuted in the Super Bowl, I used Downie to download local 4K copies of this month’s Super Bowl 59, along with Super Bowl 57 from two years ago, to compare Fox’s new scorebug with their previous one. Local video files are easy to navigate frame-by-frame to capture the perfect screenshot; YouTube’s website makes it impossible to navigate frame-by-frame.

Downie is a $20 one-time purchase (and is also included with a Setapp subscription). I’ve only been using it for a month or so, and I already feel like I’ve gotten $20 of utility from it. (I went ahead and bought Monroe’s other major app, Permute, too.)

★ Wednesday, 26 February 2025