Paste a link. Get the file.
A native macOS downloader built on yt-dlp — that your phone can drive too.
yt-dlp is the best downloader there is, and it is a command line. TBD is a small
native Mac app wrapped around it: one field, one button, files in ~/Downloads.
It also runs a tiny web server on your Wi-Fi. Scan the QR code with your phone, paste a link there, and your Mac does the downloading — then you pull the finished file to the phone if you want it. Nothing to install on the phone.
No account, no telemetry, no ads, no subscription. Monochrome on purpose.
Paste and press return. If a video link is sitting in your clipboard, the field says so and offers it in one click. The thumbnail and title appear in about 200 ms — before yt-dlp has even finished looking at the page.
yt-dlp downloads the video stream 0→100 %, then the audio stream 0→100 %, then muxes. Most front-ends show you that raw and the bar bounces. TBD weighs the phases into one bar that only ever goes forward, with a countdown that doesn't jitter — and the bar is the row, filling the capsule as it goes.
Turn on Remote Control, scan the QR code, and the same engine is reachable from any device on the same Wi-Fi — phone, tablet, someone else's laptop. The web UI is the same design as the app, installable as a PWA, and it can hand you the finished file over HTTP.
It is off until you ask for it. Launching the app opens no port; turning Remote Control off, or quitting, closes the one it opened. The choice is remembered.
Drag a finished file into the Finder. Hit space for Quick Look. Watch the Dock icon fill up. Hit ⌥⌘V from anywhere to download whatever is in your clipboard. Right-click a link in Safari → Services → Download with TBD.
Formats
- MP4 video with quality selection, H.264 preferred so QuickTime can actually play it (YouTube serves AV1 that most Macs can't decode).
- Audio as M4A, remuxed without re-encoding — MP3 if you'd rather.
- Subtitles embedded as a track, when the video has them.
Downloading
- Queue — two at a time by default, the rest wait.
- Playlists — a playlist link opens a picker: all of it, a selection, or just the one video the link pointed at.
- Estimated size before you start, and a warning if it's already in your library.
- Resume — quit mid-download, come back, it picks up where it stopped.
- Pause and resume any job.
Living with it
- Library that survives restarts, with thumbnails, reveal in Finder, and "download again".
- Filename patterns (title, channel, date, or your own yt-dlp template).
- Light, dark, or system. Menu bar item. Notifications you can click.
- Self-updating: the app, yt-dlp and FFmpeg each check once a day. yt-dlp matters more than it sounds — YouTube changes its defenses constantly, and a frozen yt-dlp goes stale on its own.
brew install --cask eliorpom-cmd/tap/to-be-downloaded && xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/TBD - To be downloaded.app"The second half is required, and it is worth knowing why. The app is ad-hoc
signed and not notarized by Apple (notarization needs a paid Apple Developer
account), so macOS tags the download with com.apple.quarantine and Gatekeeper
refuses to open anything carrying that tag. Homebrew used to lift the tag itself
with --no-quarantine; it dropped the flag in 5.1, on the grounds that
disabling a security check on someone's behalf is not a package manager's call.
The attribute is still yours to remove, and this is what removing it looks like.
It affects this app only and disables nothing else.
Download TBD.dmg from the
latest release,
drag the app into /Applications, and open it. macOS will say it cannot verify
the app: open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security,
click Open Anyway, and confirm. Asked once, then never again.
Control-clicking the app and choosing Open used to skip that; Apple removed
the shortcut in macOS Sequoia. The xattr line above works here too and avoids
the question entirely.
brew install xcodegen
./scripts/install.sh # build + install into /ApplicationsSee docs/BUILDING.md for the full build story.
| macOS | 13 Ventura or later |
| Chip | Apple Silicon (arm64) — no Intel build |
| Disk | ~43 MB for the app, ~56 MB more once FFmpeg is fetched |
| Network | Needed once on first launch (FFmpeg), unless you link one you already have |
| Account | None. Ever. |
First launch asks two questions: where downloads should go, and whether to fetch FFmpeg. Nothing is downloaded before you answer. If you already have an FFmpeg — Homebrew, MacPorts, or one you put there yourself — the app will find it and link to it instead of keeping a second copy.
If you let it fetch its own, that is ~56 MB, once. It comes from ffmpeg.martin-riedl.de, is checked against the published SHA-256, and must carry a valid Apple Developer ID signature from that publisher — otherwise it is thrown away rather than installed.
Why it isn't simply bundled: the static build this project used to ship was
compiled --enable-nonfree, which makes it not legally redistributable by
anyone, under any license. Fetching it from the party who is allowed to
distribute it fixes that, and takes the app from 125 MB to 43 MB.
docs/THIRD-PARTY.md
has the full reasoning.
- Paste a link, pick Video or Audio plus a quality, click the arrow.
Files land in
~/Downloads. - A playlist link opens a sheet: take everything, a selection, or only the video the link targeted.
- To drive it from your phone (same Wi-Fi): scan the QR code shown in the
app, or open
http://<mac-ip>:8787.- macOS may ask to allow incoming connections → Allow.
SwiftUI app → DownloadEngine spawns yt-dlp as a subprocess (never a shell)
and parses its JSON progress → the same engine backs both the native UI and the
LAN HTTP server, so there is no duplicated logic and no second source of truth.
- UI: SwiftUI, macOS 13 target, monochrome design system in
Theme.swift. - Server: FlyingFox, statically linked — no framework in the bundle.
- Engine:
yt-dlpbundled as a seed, then self-updated into~/Library/Application Support/TBD/bin. FFmpeg lives next to it. - Project file: generated by XcodeGen from
project.yml, which is the source of truth —.xcodeprojis gitignored.
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md goes further.
| Document | What's in it |
|---|---|
| docs/ARCHITECTURE.md | Layout, the download engine, the LAN server, the naming scheme |
| docs/BUILDING.md | Building, installing from source, refreshing the bundled yt-dlp |
| docs/UPDATES.md | How the app and yt-dlp update themselves, and the security model behind it |
| docs/RELEASING.md | Cutting a release, signing keys, the Homebrew tap, key loss |
| docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md | Stale Spotlight results, quarantine, TLS interception, inactive Share extension |
| docs/THIRD-PARTY.md | Bundled and downloaded components, their licenses, and why FFmpeg is not shipped |
| CONTRIBUTING.md | How to propose a change |
| SECURITY.md | Reporting a vulnerability |
| CHANGELOG.md | Notable changes per version |
TBD is a front-end for yt-dlp. It downloads what you point it at; what you are allowed to point it at is between you, the site's terms of service, and your local copyright law. Downloading material you do not have the right to copy is your responsibility, not the app's.
AGPL-3.0 for this project's own source. In plain terms:
- Fork it, change it, use it — for anything, including at work. No permission needed.
- Ship your fork and you ship your source too, under the same license. Same if you run a modified version as a network service.
- Credit stays legible — keep the NOTICE file, and name the original in your own about screen.
- The icon isn't yours to reuse. It is the author's own work, licensed to this app only; a fork ships its own.
That combination is deliberate: it keeps TBD free and forkable, while making a closed paid clone of it impossible. Nothing stops you charging for a fork — you just have to hand your users the source, which is usually the end of that idea.
Copyright stays with the author, so other arrangements are possible: if the AGPL
doesn't fit your use, ask (eliorpom@gmail.com, subject [TBD licensing]).
Bundled and downloaded third-party components keep their own licenses — see docs/THIRD-PARTY.md.
The people paying for the paid Apple Developer account. With it the app is signed and notarized, and nobody has to strip the quarantine attribute by hand to open it — that is the whole goal.
Want your name here? Support me.
Built by Elior Pommier.
- App icon by Saint, aka System Settings — @app_settings. The app would have no face without him.
- yt-dlp does the actual downloading. TBD is a face on top of it.
- FFmpeg joins the streams, extracts the audio and embeds the subtitles.
- FlyingFox serves the web UI on your Wi-Fi.
The same credits live inside the app, in Settings → Credits.
If it saves you time — buy me a coffee ☕