v5.15.0

KemonoDownloader 5.15.0 Release
Bugfix / Feature Update

Welcome to the KemonoDownloader 5.15.0 release!

This is a major quality-of-life and reliability update that adds clear handling of preview-only and missing files, stronger crash protection, Tor that never bypasses itself, a single consistent look across the entire app (with theme options), and multiple download and stability fixes.

The main improvements are:

• Clear handling of preview-only files and files missing from the media servers (with optional preview saving and better reporting)
• Crash protection so unexpected errors no longer close the whole app
• Tor that never silently falls back to a direct connection
• Unified visual theme across every tab and window, plus five dark colour themes
• Major log window redesign, better Help guide, improved proxy/Tor settings, and many download reliability fixes

As always, KemonoDownloader remains fully open-source and free to use, modify, and build.

Site Availability Status

As of November 13, 2026, primary full-resolution media download servers for Kemono.cr and Coomer.st may experience downtime, rotation, or outages. To ensure users can always archive content, Pawchive.pw serves as an alternative full-resolution media source, and the Thumbnail Downloader tab remains available. Because thumbnail delivery servers img.kemono.cr, img.coomer.st, img.pawchive.pw) remain active and operational during media server outages, the Thumbnail Downloader tab allows users to continue downloading post preview images, providing a working fallback option (albeit at thumbnail resolution).

Site / Server	Status	Last Checked
Kemono.cr Media Server	🔴 Intermittent / Unavailable	November 13, 2026
Coomer.st Media Server	🔴 Intermittent / Unavailable	November 13, 2026
Pawchive.pw Media Server	🟢 Available	November 13, 2026
Thumbnail Delivery Servers img.*)	🟢 Available	November 13, 2026

Note: Status reflects the availability of backend media download servers. Front-end availability and thumbnail servers may vary.

Changelog

feat: clear handling of preview-only and missing files, crash protection, Tor that never bypasses itself, one consistent look across the app, and download reliability fixes

• Explain files the site only has previews of, instead of failing on them.
  Pawchive lists many files whose full copy is gone and only the thumbnail remains (one creator had over 8,000). Downloading them failed with "404 Client Error" and was retried up to 50 times each, which looked like a broken app. The site marks these files, so the downloaders now recognise them before downloading: a warning window (it doesn't pause the downloads) explains why they can't be downloaded and lists them, and the Post tab shows them as "preview only" and doesn't let you select them. Progress counts no longer include them.

• Optionally save their preview images.
  A new setting, "Save the preview image when the site only has a preview of a file" (off by default), downloads the preview of such images instead, named like 00501_preview.png.

• Report files the media server doesn't have.
  On every site, a file that answers HTTP 404 or 410 is no longer retried and is reported in plain words. Each download ends with a summary of how many files were downloaded, only previews, not on the server, or failed, and a window lists the missing files. The History tab's files column explains the same counts, and the CSV export includes them.

• Make fewer requests to Pawchive.
  Files are requested straight from the server Pawchive names for them, one request less per file, falling back to the usual address if that server fails. Files you already downloaded are still recognised.

• Keep the app running after an unexpected error.
  An error that nothing else caught used to make PyQt close the whole app without a message (on Windows, exit code 0xC0000409). The app now shows a dialog with details to include in a bug report, and keeps running.

• Fix crashes when Creator tab background tasks finish.
  The URL validation, post detection, file preparation, filtering and check-all threads could be destroyed while they were still finishing, which closed the app ("QThread: Destroyed while thread is still running").

• Retry incomplete downloads in the Creator tab.
  A file that arrived shorter than the server announced (usually a dropped connection) was deleted and given up after one attempt, whatever the retry setting; both tabs now retry it.

• Keep your place in the full logs window, and redesign it.
  Scrolling back through the logs during a download kept jumping, because the window and the tab's console shared one copy of the log and kept re-wrapping it at each other's width. The window now keeps its own copy and adds new lines as they arrive: at the bottom it follows them, and scrolled up it stays where you are while a button shows how many new lines are waiting. It also gets a monospace font, search with highlighted matches (Ctrl+F, Enter and Shift+Enter), a line count and a Copy All button, and log colours in both the window and the console are easier to read.

• Give the whole app one consistent look, and stop buttons from deforming.
  Each tab styled its own buttons, fields, lists and progress bars, with slightly different colours, padding and corners. One theme now styles every tab and window: the same buttons everywhere (main actions such as Download, Detect Thumbnails and Apply Changes stand out, and Cancel, Stop Tor, Reset and Clear Logs are red), matching text fields, drop-downs, check boxes with check marks, lists, progress bars (amber when paused, green when done), tabs, scroll bars, tooltips and message boxes, and links in the same blue. The font chosen in Settings applies everywhere, logs included. The Download, Cancel and Expand Logs buttons used to grow and shrink on hover, which fought the layout and left them misshapen; hovering now changes colours only, so no button changes shape, and the small icon buttons are evenly square.

• Choose a colour theme, and hover over controls for help.
  Settings has a new Appearance section with five dark themes: Midnight (the original), Graphite, Plum, Forest and Ember. A theme applies straight away, everywhere, including the guide and list rows. Buttons, fields, check boxes and settings across the app now show a short explanation when you hover over them, in all four languages.

• Choose which log messages to show.
  A new Log Settings section in Settings picks what the consoles and the full logs show: debug details (off by default), progress and info, warnings, and errors. Debug details get their own grey-blue colour, and about 60 debug messages that were sent as ordinary info are now marked as debug, so they no longer crowd the console.

• Explain every section of the app, and rewrite the Help guide.
  Each section of the downloader tabs, History and Settings now starts with a short note on what it's for. The Help tab is a new guide with a topic list, search with highlighted matches, and Previous/Next buttons, covering getting started, each tab, settings, proxy and Tor, logs and reports, troubleshooting, and support. The old manual described four tabs, settings that don't exist ("Clear Cache", "Enable Logging") and no update check; the new guide matches the app in all four languages.

• Redesign the Browser Extension tab and fix its installation steps.
  The tab now shows what the extension does, then numbered steps with copyable commands, how to use it, and fixes for common problems. The old steps skipped choosing the browser's manifest, so loading the folder as described loaded a placeholder that doesn't work.

• Keep the window on smaller screens.
  Switching from the intro to the main screen could make the window taller than it needed to be, past the bottom of smaller screens; it now keeps its size. The Thumbnail tab's left panel scrolls like the Post and Creator tabs, so the window's minimum height dropped from 868 to about 700 pixels.

• Rework the proxy settings.
  The Use Proxy switch and a short explanation now sit inside the Proxy Settings group, and only the chosen proxy type's options take up room. Custom proxies show a valid example address and the formats they accept (host:port, http://, socks5h://, with an optional login). Tor's controls are grouped: path with Browse and Download Tor, then Start, Stop and Test with Help, a status badge, and a note that downloads fail rather than bypass Tor when it isn't running.

• Never bypass Tor when it is selected.
  With Tor chosen but not running, downloads used to go straight to the site, and without PySocks they used a Privoxy port the app never starts. Requests now always go through Tor's port and fail if Tor isn't available, so your IP address is never used by accident. A Tor service you run yourself on the default port also works.

• Update and verify the built-in Tor download.
  "Download Tor" fetches the Tor 16.0.1 Expert Bundle (was 15.0.3) and checks it against the SHA-256 from Tor's signed checksum list before extracting anything. Linux on ARM64 gets the right bundle and unsupported systems get a message. On Linux, the bundle's debug symbols (debug/tor) are no longer picked as the Tor program; the download has a timeout, links pointing outside the Tor folder are refused, and a failed download no longer leaves its archive in the temp folder.

• Fix Pawchive previews and links.
  Previews now send the identifiable user agent Pawchive requires (they failed with HTTP 403), the Pawchive request policy covers every pawchive.<suffix> domain, and post links are accepted by the site's own name.

• Finish the translations and tidy the interface.
  The remaining English-only text is translated (the Tor status and help, "Custom Proxy", Settings folder errors, log saving messages, the Expand Logs tooltip and the Thumbnail tab's preview hint), and changing the language while Tor runs no longer shows it as stopped. The Post tab has one "JPG/JPEG" option like the Creator tab, and its file-type filters now apply while files are prepared. Twenty unused translations were removed, and four Korean labels in the Thumbnail tab that were partly in Japanese are fixed.

• Improve the Linux packages and dependencies.
  The .deb, .rpm, openSUSE and Arch packages declare the X11 libraries Qt needs, including xcb-cursor, whose absence made the app close at launch. Flatpak builds use the KDE 6.11 runtime, the unused Pillow dependency was removed, and the package description mentions Pawchive.

• Correct the documentation and website.
  The download range is 1-20 with a default of 5 everywhere (the docs and in-app Help said 1-10 and 10), and the README's retry limits match the app. The READMEs explain how to install xcb-cursor on Linux and where builds are available. The security policy covers the latest release and offers private vulnerability reports, and the Code of Conduct and Support page no longer suggest "private issues", which GitHub doesn't have. The in-app Help documents the new setting and has a troubleshooting entry for preview-only and missing files. On the website the build steps show their commands again, the Support, Contributing and License links are back, Pawchive is listed, the Simplified Chinese page no longer shows "undefined" on its language button, and the Korean page names the languages in Korean.

• Strengthen CI and tests.
  Tests run on Python 3.9 to 3.14 on Windows, macOS and Linux, including the new Ubuntu 26.04 runners, with the code checks in their own job and pyright pinned. Flaky thread tests were fixed, tests no longer write into the repository or /tmp, and over 100 tests were added.

Pre-Compiled Binaries

To support ongoing development, maintenance, domain updates, and future features, pre-compiled binaries are available via contribution. Choose the option that fits your usage:

• Monthly Support (Recommended): Get binaries for all current and future versions, including regular updates and new features.
  Get Monthly Binaries →

• Single-Version Contribution: Get binaries only for v5.15.0.
  Future versions will require separate or monthly contributions.
  Get v5.15.0 Binaries →

Note: New versions usually arrive every few weeks/months with fixes and enhancements — monthly support gives the best long-term value.

Available Binaries (v5.15.0)

• Linux (Arch-based): L-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
• Linux (Fedora): L-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-1.fcXX.x86_64.rpm
• Linux (Ubuntu Noble): L-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-1.ubuntu-noble_amd64.deb
• macOS (ARM64 / Apple Silicon): M-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-arm64.dmg
• macOS (Intel): M-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-x86_64.dmg
• Windows (Portable): W-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-x86_64-Portable.exe
• Windows (Installer): W-KemonoDownloader-5.15.0-x86_64.msi

Pawchive Downloader Browser Extension

• Chromium-based Browsers: chrome-pawchive-dl-extension.zip
• Firefox: firefox-pawchive-dl-extension.zip

Support the project by contributing: Get binaries for Monthly Support or Get v5.15.0 binaries.

Pawchive Downloader Browser Extension

A standalone Pawchive Downloader Browser Extension (rebuilt fork) is available separately from KemonoDownloader.

It provides dedicated support for Pawchive with quick link detection, one-click downloads, and enhanced integration for Pawchive content.

Download the Pawchive Downloader Browser Extension →

Note: This is a separate project from KemonoDownloader. Supporting via Ko-fi helps maintain both tools.

Open-Source Availability

KemonoDownloader is and will always remain open source.

Full source code, build instructions, extension source, and documentation are available in the repository. Feel free to compile it yourself or contribute!

Support the Project

Contributions via Ko-fi help fund development time, server costs, domain renewals, and ongoing improvements. Thank you to everyone who supports the project — it makes continued work possible!

Thank you for using KemonoDownloader!