Version 1.30 – New features and bug fixes

This release was just as difficult as v1.29.3 and took a long time to finish. There are still yet more bugs to fix but, the applet does download successfully in macOS 12 (Monterey), 15 (Sequoia) and 26 (Tahoe). At the final stage of preparing this release, I found that the "Adviser" alert which is issued when a download concludes has stopped working on Monterey and Sequoia but still works on Tahoe. No idea why. As the Adviser is not critical for downloading, I decided to release v1.30 anyway.

Most importantly, v1.30 implements Deno, a Java runtime that is recommended by the yt-dlp developers for downloading from YouTube. It is not compulsory but without it, downloads from YouTube will probably fail more often over time.

The MacYTDL logo is gone for now. Exporting, signing and notarising as an applet in macOS Tahoe kills custom file icons for AppleScript applets.

Here is the list of changes in v1.30:

• Deno has been implemented. It is an optional install available in “Utilities” if the installed version of yt‑dlp is more recent than 2025.10.22. It is also offered to users if a download URL points to YouTube and Deno is not installed. More information on Deno is available from these sites:
  https://deno.com/
  yt-dlp/yt-dlp#14404
• “.netrc” files containing credentials are now fully supported. Credentials for each web site can be stored in a plain text file named “.netrc” which is stored in the user’s Home folder.
• A new “Recode” video option has been added. Recode and remux are mutually exclusive. Recode will attempt to re-encode all streams available in a download to codecs compatible with the desired container format. Errors are reported in the yt-dlp log. Recoding requires a fast Mac.
• The download “Monitor” dialog should now display properly for users on macOS 26 Tahoe. Have made a small change to the DialogToolkitMacYTDL library which is now at version 1.8.
• The download Monitor buttons should now all be visible on macOS 26 Tahoe.
• There has been significant under-the-hood work to reduce the risk of AppleScript running out of resources. This has involved changing all script libraries into compiled bundles and relocating those libraries to the Script Libraries folder inside MacYTDL. A new script library has been required for the auto-download function which now has its own download code. A side-benefit of this change is that libraries are no longer stored in each user’s Script Libraries folder. However, the ABC iView “Chooser” has been replaced with a simplified dialog for choosing desired episodes.
• The “QT compatible video” setting will now recode videos which are in an “mp4” container. Note, however, that videos which are already QT compatible will also be converted.
• The “SBS Chooser” is not available in this release. The SBS OnDemand web site has changed again. There has not been enough time in this MacYTDL release to redesign code which parses those web pages. However, individual episode of shows and movies can still be downloaded normally.
• MacYTDL should no longer crash when subtitles are turned on.
• Batch downloads should now work and there should be no crashes when returning to the Main dialog after attempting the download batch function on an empty batch file.
• Multiple URLs can now be delimited by commas, returns, tabs and linefeeds as well as spaces. This applies when adding URLs to a batch as well as a normal download.
• It is no longer possible to run MacYTDL from within the disk image file (DMG). MacYTDL is best run from the “Applications” folder (which can be seen by all users).
• Opening the batch functions dialog should be quicker, than previously, when “Audio only” is turned on.
• The Formats Chooser is now skipped if “Add URL to Batch” is chosen on Main dialog. Previously, the Formats Chooser was shown then the URL was added to the batch. However, the ID of formats chosen was not saved making the formats choice pointless.
• It should be possible to download playlists from more web sites. Previously, attempting to download a playlist for sites other than YouTube would crash MacYTDL.
• A spurious error message is no longer displayed if an updated to stable yt-dlp released is cancelled at the administrator credentials dialog stage.
• Updating a yt-dlp nightly release should now be faster.
• The Monitor dialog shows “converted in” instead of “downloaded in” when FFmpeg is converted the downloaded video.
• The yt-dlp version now shows in “Utilities” if yt-dlp was installed after being found missing.
• Batch downloads which include videos from ABC iView Australia will be named “Series-Episode.extension”.

Version 1.29.3 – Bug fixes and under-the-hood changes – again

MacYTDL Release Notes – Version 1.29.3 – Bug fixes etc.

This release was difficult. I haven't been able to rigorously test the changes.

• MacYTDL was unusable in macOS 26 Tahoe. This has been fixed in v1.29.3 but, users of macOS 26 must update MacYTDL to v1.29.3.
• The position of buttons and width of dialogs has been changed slightly. This was made necessary by macOS 26 Tahoe.
• The MacYTDL icon has changed slightly. This was made necessary by macOS 26 Tahoe.
• Users on macOS 10.10 to 10.14 can no longer update the yt-dlp script. The final version available for those users is 25.08.11.
• Three fixes for the “Credentials for download” function:
  • Added error checking if OK button clicked while credentials are blank.
  • Will now return to main dialog if user clicks on “Return” instead of downloading.
  • Will now add credentials to download request – broken in v1.29.2.
• The ABC iView Chooser now correctly returns to the Main dialog when user clicks on “Return”.
• Download process should no longer start if cookies are specified but the cookies file is missing.
• A significant amount of code has been reorganised in order to stay within AppleScript limits – hoping to avoid Internal Overflow errors. More work is needed on this.

New Known Issues

• Startup can be extremely slow on the first occasion. This appears to be happening while yt-dlp is being installed. Work is continuing on a solution.
  Workaround: Be patient and wait for installation to complete.
• The MacYTDL logo is usually missing from alerts. This is another result of macOS Tahoe.
  Workaround: Don’t worry. Details and functions in the alerts should still work.
• The process of updating yt-dlp can take a long time. This is occurring when MacYTDL is unpacking the - yt-dlp “zip” archive. Reason for this delay is not yet known.
  Workaround: Sorry, but only option is to wait.
• The SBS Chooser is no longer working. Much work has been done but SBS recently changed their web page structure yet again. Some pages might work but usually, MacYTDL will crash.
  Workaround: Please, be patient. This should be fixed in the next version of MacYTDL. In the meantime, only download individual episodes from SBS OnDemand.
• Code for the batch functions has been moved between script libraries. This might have broken some functions. There has not been time to test all the functions.
• MacYTDL will probably crash if the user refuses to install the DialogToolkitMacYTDL script library or cancelled the credentials dialog.
  Workaround: Try again but agree to install the script library. MacYTDL cannot work without that library.

Version 1.29.2 – Bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements

This release is mostly bug fixes and under-the-hood changes:

• There has been significant restructuring of AppleScript handlers. Testing might not have found all the bugs in this release.
• Audio container formats have been added to remux settings: aiff, flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg and wav.
  Note that there is no error checking on compatibility of codecs inside downloaded files and container format chosen for remux. Errors are reported in the MacYTDL log files.
• There should be fewer crashes if the home folder has been relocated to an external volume.
• There should be fewer “Stack overflow” crashes when MacYTDL has exhausted AppleScript internal resources. Previously, many handler calls were never-ending recursive and so could exhaust internal resources.
• There should be fewer “User interaction disallowed” crashes. Previously, that error could occur when MacYTDL was not the active, front-most application.
• The “Check for MacYTDL update” function should now work reliably.
• Auto-downloads when using a non-English language should no longer cause crashes and yt-dlp errors.
• Some French language localisations have been added.
• The “Switch FFmpeg to [Intel/ARM]” function no longer crashes.
• The “Check for FFmpeg update” function no longer crashes.
• The “Save current settings” and “Restore settings” functions no longer crash when location of settings files has changed.
  Note that this function will be redesigned in the next version of MacYTDL.

Version 1.29.1 – Three bug fixes

Version 1.29.1 is a quick release with three bug fixes. One fix is an attempt to fix the regular crashes as reported by a user.

• Display of MacYTDL dialogs is now always forced. This might help reduce crashes for some users.
• Should no longer crash when trying to download in parallel a YouTube playlist which requires a login. Option to download in such cases has been removed.
• The iView Australia chooser layout has been improved for users on lo-res screens. It’s still a work-in-progress.

Version 1.29 – Minor changes and bug fixes, again

No major new functions in this release. But, the speed improvement provided by using the unpackaged version of YT-DLP is worthwhile.

• For users on macOS 10.15+, MacYTDL now installs an unpackaged form of yt-dlp. The unpackaged form is usually quicker to run especially when initiating parallel downloads. This takes an additional 120MB of disk space. Users on macOS 10.14 and earlier will continue to use a packed “legacy” form of yt-dlp. With this change many functions will be faster although download speed is unaffected.
• Some more settings have been added to the “Show settings before download” dialog.
• MacYTDL should start up more quickly when “Check yt-dlp version on startup” is on.
• The startup process always checks for and, if required, updates the user’s version of the MacYTDL preferences file. That process is now simpler and should be a slightly faster.
• Some handlers were moved from main.scpt to utilities.scpt.
• The Adviser now shows at conclusion of a parallel download – a bug was introduced in v1.27.
• The iView Chooser should no longer crash when ABC shows are requested from the MacYTDL Service.
• The iView Chooser now has a minimum width.
• The ABC iView Chooser should display more detail on lower resolution screens. If screen width is less than 1600, episode titles are trimmed to 30 characters.

Known Issues

• There is an error when attempting to resume a paused or incomplete download from iView Australia.
  Workaround: Locate and delete the file with name ending in “.part-FragNNN.part” before resuming or restarting download.
  UPDATE: Turning on the "Don't use "part" file names in download" setting is another, better, workaround.
• Cannot play downloaded video at conclusion of batch download using the “Adviser”.
  Workaround: Locate and the desired downloaded video file using Finder and play in the normal way.
• Script errors can occur when attempting to download a video which is currently being downloaded. Code which should identify duplicate downloads doesn’t always work properly.
  Workaround: Do not attempt to download the same video when a download of that video is in progress.
• Opening the Batch functions dialog can be very slow. This occurs when “Audio only” setting is on.
  Workaround: There is no workaround at present. The batch functions do work.

Version 1.28 – Minor changes and bug fixes

Not much change with this release but some minor improvements and bug fixes:

• There should no longer be a crash when MacYTDL is located in a folder which has a single quote in its name.
• The SBS Australia OnDemand Chooser has been tweaked as SBS changed the html code in their web pages yet again.
• The “Show Settings” dialog how shows current settings for Maximum resolution, Discard URL after download and Delete partial downloads.
• Fixed a typo in code for the “Show Settings” dialog which translates the user’s “Write thumbnails” preference into a “Yes” in the dialog.
• Uninstall now removes MacYTDL-related files for all user accounts. That includes all log files and MacYTDL components.
• Live streams can no longer be added for batch processing. Doesn’t make sense as a live stream would prevent rest of batch being downloaded.
• Batch downloads should now respect user’s choice of subtitles format. If desired format is not available, the available format is downloaded then converted to desired format.
• Batch downloads in parallel should now work when there are two videos in the batch. Previously it would only work if there were three or more videos in the batch.
• Changed the “--recode-video” parameter sent to yt-dlp to “--remux-video” when user has requested a remux. Parameter sent to youtube-dl unchanged as it does not provide for “--remux-video”.
• Removed post-processor parameters from “--remux-video” as they were badly formed causing FFmpeg to apply them to subtitle conversions. They also proved to be unnecessary.
• MacYTDL no longer crashes if an invalid value is entered into the “Limit download speed” settings in “Admin”.
• The ABC iView Chooser now shows apostrophes and opening and closing double quotes correctly – according to source text. The width of the Chooser is better when a single column of episodes is shown with wide episode names.
• The dialog shown after completing the “Add to batch” function now reports to number of URLs added.

Version 1.27.1 – Bug fixes especially for users on OS X 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12

Apologies to users on old versions of OS X. This version deals with some incompatibilites that are now encountered by old Macs:

• The correct version of FFmpeg is now installed for all users on macOS versions 10.12 and earlier – version 6.0 of 28 February 2023. Previously, the wrong version was installed for those using MacYTDL for the first time.
  • Consequently, the FFmpeg update facility in “Utilities” is hidden for those users as the most recent compatible version is installed.
• The correct version of FFmpeg is now sourced for users on 10.13, 10.14, 10.15 and 11. Source has been moved from binaries compiled for macOS 12+ to another source which has Intel binaries compiled for macOS 10.13+.
• The position of the Main dialog is now saved on Quit as well as when opening the Utilities or Settings dialogs.
• The Send-URL-to-MacYTDL service should work in Firefox. Previously, it was not getting the URL from the address bar.
• Users on OS X 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12 can no longer use the ABC (Australia) iView “chooser” to download multiple episodes. This is because the version of curl installed does not present the correct certificates to the iView web site.

Version 1.27 – Mostly bug fixes

Apologies for the long delay in releasing a new version of MacYTDL. This version is mostly bug fixes but has a few new features:

• A new setting has been added to control whether successfully downloaded URLs are deleted the batch file.
• The ALAC audio format is now available for audio-only downloads.
• The warning suppression setting is now implemented in all download steps.
• Private videos in playlists should no longer cause a crash.
• SBS Australia have changed the content of their web pages. So, the SBS Chooser can now show all seasons or one season depending on URL. However, the Chooser will not display all episodes if there are more than 100 episodes in total. Then, by default it will show episodes of the most recent season. Episodes from another season can be downloaded by navigating to the season tab for that season. A number of improvements are planned for v1.28 of MacYTDL.
• Live streams from SBS Australia can now be recorded.
• Permissions of many folders and files inside the MacYTDL bundle have been rectified. MacYTDL should now work properly in multi-user situations.
• Keyboard shortcuts to invoke the “Admin” and “Settings” dialogs have been changed to be more consistent with macOS standards. “Settings” is now invoked with command-, and “Admin” is invoked with command-shift-,.
• Wording in the Monitor dialog has been simplified.
• Intel versions of FFmpeg and FFprobe are now sourced from Martin Riedl's FFmpeg Build Server. The previous source seems to be no longer providing timely updates.
  • However, for users on macOS 10.14 and earlier, a compatible version of FFmpeg and FFprobe is sourced from https://evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/.
• Alerts shown while components are being installed will stay visible longer.
• More characters are shown in the “ID” column of the “Get formats list” dialog to try to make the different formats clearer.
• Using the “Get formats list” function no longer crashes on Swedish TV (www.svtplay.se).
• Batch downloads should now work when remux is specified.
• Parallel downloads for SBS shows should now work correctly.
• Added some missing settings to the “Show settings before download” dialog: “Parallel downloads”, “No part files”, “Delete partial files” and “Hide warnings”.
• Minor improvement to layout of the “Show settings before download” dialog when subtitles are being downloaded.
  • Layout in Spanish is improved but needs more work.
• A couple of checkboxes in the “Utilities” dialog will no longer behave like text boxes. This was caused by overlapping label and checkbox controls.
• Batch downloads no longer done in parallel if there is just one item in the batch.
• Live streams from the Australian 9Now site can no longer be recorded – requires a yt-dlp fix.

Version 1.26.1 – Bug fixes

This release has bug fixes and Spanish language improvements:

• Fixed the crash when “Check yt-dlp version on startup” is turned on.
• Added some Spanish translations that were missing and improved others – many thanks to Michel.
• Default settings should be translated correctly when switching between English and other languages then back again.
• The “Utilities” dialog should no longer trim longer text labels in non-English languages.
• Simplified wording of the update YT-DLP facility in “Utilities”.

Version 1.26 – New features, options and bug fixes

Version 1.26 has a new formats listing dialog, can download multiple files in parallel and has a number of new options.

• The names of log files now start with “ytdl_log-” instead of “youtube-dl_log-”. MacYTDL no longer installs youtube-dl which has not been updated since December 2021.
• The “Settings” dialog has been split into two separate dialogs. The “Settings” dialog continues to handle settings which relate more to particular downloads. The second dialog is called “Admin” and handles settings which are more related to ongoing functions and control over how MacYTDL operates. Previously the “Settings” dialog could extend below the bottom of the screen on low resolution screens thus preventing new settings being added. This split enables more new settings to be added to MacYTDL.
• It is now possible to download multiple videos in parallel. This can speed up downloads when individual downloads do not use all the available bandwidth. Parallel downloads are available for multiple URLs, playlists and batches.
• A setting has been added to restrict resolution of downloaded videos. YT-DLP defaults to the best resolution available. This setting sets a maximum resolution to be downloaded which can make watching those videos more viable on slow/old Macs or low resolution screens.
• A setting has been added to disable use of “.part” files. YT-DLP can use “.part” files during a download to indicate more clearly that the download is not complete. But, those files are not usually immediately playable.
• A new setting to choose whether partially downloaded files should be deleted. If “part” file names are not used, however, a playable partially downloaded file is retained.
• A “Suppress warnings” setting is now available which causes YT-DLP to ignore all warnings.
• There is now a setting to discard or keep a URL after download. Previously MacYTDL would always discard URLs after download has started. The default is now to keep URLs available in Main dialog text box.
• The “Formats List” dialog has been redesigned and is now scrollable on low resolution screens instead of extending below the bottom of the screen. Also, the list displays more quickly if the user needs to return to the dialog e.g. after pressing “Download” without selecting a format. The new dialog is formed with the Myriad Tables Lib by Shane Stanley.
  Note: This function is problematic. If MacYTDL crashes, it can be worth trying the same URL again.
• The “Formats List” now reports average bitrate. This should help distinguish more formats.
• The “Formats List” no longer crashes:
  • if a Return is pressed on the warning issued when no formats have been selected; and
  • on videos from Dailymotion and 9Now.
• Automatic downloads should work more often. It turns out that it has not worked much since version 1.23 of MacYTDL.
  Note: I’ve not been to find a cure for the faults in this function and so it may result in an error.
• Embedding subtitles no longer require specific file format or remux settings. However, some combinations will fail, depending on the codecs contained by the source download.
• Downloading a batch now respects the user’s subtitle settings.
• Adding two or more URLs to a batch should now work.
• Installing a YT-DLP nightly build no longer crashes MacYTDL if the credentials dialog is cancelled.
• The Monitor and Adviser dialogs should now show the playlist name when MacYTDL is downloading a playlist.
• The Adviser dialog should play the downloaded file, if requested, more reliably.
• Pressing the “Esc” key no longer closes the Monitor dialog and cancels a download. The only way to cancel a download is to click on the “Stop” or “Pause” buttons. Previously, a download could be accidentally cancelled by pressing the “Esc” key.
• Code which previously worked around problems with downloading from SBS Australia has been removed. The workarounds are no longer needed.
• MacYTDL no longer reports old stable YT-DLP builds as being more recent than current nightly builds.