Forge

A native macOS app for downloading videos and audio from YouTube and other sites, converting to high-fidelity audio formats (WAV, FLAC, AIFF, MP3) and popular video formats — powered by embedded yt-dlp and FFmpeg.

Fully self-contained: everything the app needs ships inside the .app bundle. No Homebrew, no Python, no external dependencies.

Features

• Download video and audio from YouTube and hundreds of other sites via yt-dlp running as an embedded subprocess.
• High-fidelity audio conversion to WAV, FLAC, AIFF and MP3 with the embedded FFmpeg (sample rate and bitrate are user-configurable).
• Video formats: MP4, MKV, WebM, MOV and AVI.
• Queue with live progress, cancellation and human-like pacing between requests.
• History of completed downloads, persisted locally as JSON.
• Standalone extraction profile: import your browser cookies so sites see a real, authenticated session instead of an anonymous script.

Human-like extraction (bot-detection mitigation)

Many sites ask script clients to "confirm you're not a bot". Forge handles this by reusing your real browser session instead of bypassing anything:

• Cookies imported from Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Brave (--cookies-from-browser), or a manually exported cookies.txt.
• Optional custom user agent, Accept-Language and custom headers.
• Conservative rate limiting: sleeps between requests, limited bandwidth and single-fragment downloads by default.
• YouTube extractor client fallback via --extractor-args when a client gets blocked.
• An in-app alert guides you through importing cookies when a site challenges the request — no CAPTCHA solvers, no proxy rotation.

Building

Requirements:

• macOS 27 (Golden Gate)
• Xcode 27
• XcodeGen to generate the project

# 1. Generate the Xcode project
xcodegen generate

# 2. Download the embedded tools (yt-dlp, ffmpeg, ffprobe)
./scripts/bootstrap-tools.sh

# 3. Validate architectures and signatures
./scripts/validate-embed.sh

# 4. Build + test
xcodebuild -project Forge.xcodeproj -scheme Forge test

# 5. Package a self-contained .app
./scripts/package.sh            # produces build/Forge.app

# Optional: sign + notarize (needs Developer ID and notarytool profile)
FORGE_SIGNING_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: ..." ./scripts/sign.sh build/Forge.app

Project layout

Forge/               SwiftUI app (App/, UI/)
Forge/Core/          ForgeKit framework: Engine, Extraction, Downloader,
                     Converter, History (protocol-oriented, unit-tested)
ForgeTests/          XCTest suite
Tools/               embedded binaries (yt-dlp, ffmpeg, ffprobe)
scripts/             bootstrap, validation, packaging and signing

Design notes

• Zero hardcoding: formats, codecs, quality selectors and extraction defaults are all derived from enums and AppConstants; nothing is baked into call sites.
• Self-contained by construction: binaries live in Forge.app/Contents/MacOS/, located at runtime through Bundle.main.executableURL.
• HIG macOS 27: NavigationSplitView with edge-to-edge sidebar, uniform toolbars, system materials, semantic colors and standard alert patterns.
• Swift 6 concurrency: strict Sendable checking; UI state is main-actor isolated and subprocess streaming is @Sendable-clean.

Legal

Forge is licensed under the GPL-3.0. It bundles yt-dlp (public domain) and FFmpeg (LGPL/GPL depending on build configuration).

Downloading media from sites like YouTube may violate their Terms of Service and can infringe copyright. Use Forge only with content you own or that is legally downloadable. You are responsible for how you use it.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md and the code of conduct. PRs welcome — keep changes tested and formatted.

License

GPL-3.0 — see LICENSE.