dlm - Download Manager

A self-hosted download manager for queuing and processing downloads with yt-dlp, gallery-dl, wget, and any other command-line download tool.

dlm provides a web UI, HTTP API, CLI, background daemon, and browser extension so you can queue up downloads from anywhere and let them process automatically.

Features

• Web UI -- dark-themed dashboard to manage downloads, view logs, and monitor status
• Background daemon -- automatically processes queued downloads on an interval
• Collections -- route URLs to different download tools and directories based on domain
• CLI -- add URLs, check status, and trigger downloads from the terminal
• Browser extension -- send URLs to dlm from your browser with a click or keyboard shortcut
• HTTP API -- integrate with scripts, automation, and other tools
• SQLite database -- lightweight persistence, no external database needed
• Title fetching -- automatically fetches page titles for queued URLs
• Error tracking -- failed downloads show error messages and can be retried
• Priority support -- high-priority downloads are processed first

Requirements

• Deno 2.x or later
• One or more download tools installed and in your PATH:
  • yt-dlp for video/audio
  • gallery-dl for image galleries
  • wget or curl for general files

Install

Prebuilt binary

Download the latest binary for your platform from GitHub Releases. No runtime dependencies needed.

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -Lo dlm https://github.com/brettchalupa/dlm/releases/latest/download/dlm-0.1.0-linux-x86_64
chmod +x dlm
sudo mv dlm /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -Lo dlm https://github.com/brettchalupa/dlm/releases/latest/download/dlm-0.1.0-darwin-aarch64
chmod +x dlm
sudo mv dlm /usr/local/bin/

From source

Install Deno if you don't have it:

curl -fsSL https://deno.land/install.sh | sh

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/brettchalupa/dlm.git
cd dlm

Configure

Copy and edit the config:

cp dlm.example.yml dlm.yml

Edit dlm.yml to define your collections -- which domains map to which download commands and directories. See dlm.example.yml for a full reference.

Usage

Start the server

Run the web server with the background download daemon:

# Prebuilt binary
dlm serve --with-daemon

# From source
deno task run

This starts the web UI at http://localhost:8001 and processes queued downloads every 2 minutes.

For development with auto-reload:

deno task dev

Server with separate daemon

Run the server and daemon separately for more control:

# Terminal 1: web server only
dlm serve

# Terminal 2: daemon (check every 5 minutes, 3 downloads per run)
dlm dd 5 3

Add downloads

Through the web UI at http://localhost:8001, paste URLs into the form.

Through the CLI:

dlm add https://youtube.com/watch?v=example

# Multiple URLs
dlm add https://example.com/1 https://example.com/2

# From stdin (pipe from other tools)
echo "https://example.com/video" | dlm add -

CLI commands

dlm                      # show help
dlm serve                # start web server
dlm serve --with-daemon  # server + daemon
dlm add [urls]           # add URLs to queue
dlm count                # show download counts by status
dlm dl                   # download all pending
dlm dl 5                 # download 5 pending
dlm dd                   # run daemon (default: every 5 min)
dlm dd 10 5              # daemon: every 10 min, 5 per run
dlm init                 # initialize the database
dlm version              # show version

When running from source, replace dlm with deno run -A main.ts.

Remote CLI client

The CLI client (cli.ts) communicates with a running dlm server over HTTP, useful for managing downloads from a different machine:

# Initialize with your server URL
deno run -A cli.ts init
# Enter: http://your-server:8001

# Then use commands
deno run -A cli.ts count
deno run -A cli.ts add https://example.com/video
deno run -A cli.ts ls
deno run -A cli.ts dl 5
deno run -A cli.ts retry 42
deno run -A cli.ts retry-all-failed
deno run -A cli.ts delete-all-failed
deno run -A cli.ts reset 42
deno run -A cli.ts reset-all-downloading

Environment variables

• PORT -- override the default server port (default: 8001)

Configuration

dlm uses a YAML config file (dlm.yml) to define download collections.

Each collection specifies:

• domains -- URL patterns to match against
• dir -- directory to save downloads to
• command -- shell command to run, where % is replaced with the URL

collections:
  yt:
    domains:
      - youtube.com
      - youtu.be
    dir: ~/Videos/YouTube
    command: "yt-dlp %"

  images:
    domains:
      - imgur.com
    dir: ~/Pictures
    command: "gallery-dl %"

  files:
    domains:
      - example.com
    dir: ~/Downloads
    command: "wget -P . %"

See dlm.example.yml for more examples.

HTTP API

All endpoints are served from the web server (default http://localhost:8001).

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/	Web UI
POST	/api/add-urls	Add URLs (JSON body: {"urls": [...]})
GET	/api/count	Download counts by status
GET	/api/downloads	List all downloads
GET	/api/upcoming	Next 10 pending downloads
GET	/api/recent	10 most recent downloads
GET	/api/download/:id	Get a single download
DELETE	/api/download/:id	Delete a download
GET	/api/status?url=...	Check status of a URL
POST	/api/download	Trigger downloads (JSON body: {"limit": 5})
POST	/api/retry/:id	Retry a failed download
POST	/api/retry-all-failed	Retry all failed downloads
DELETE	/api/delete-all-failed	Delete all failed downloads
POST	/api/reset/:id	Reset a downloading item to pending
POST	/api/reset-all-downloading	Reset all downloading to pending
POST	/api/redownload/:id	Re-download a completed item
GET	/api/config	View current configuration
GET	/api/system	System info (memory, uptime, Deno version)
GET	/api/logs	Recent log entries

Browser Extension

The browser extension lets you send URLs to dlm directly from your browser. See browser_ext/README.md for installation and usage.

Features:

• Send the current page URL with a click or keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+D)
• Right-click context menu to send any link
• Bulk-collect links from a page using CSS selectors
• Configurable server URL

Desktop Apps (Experimental)

Native desktop clients are in early development:

• desktop_gtk/ -- GTK4/libadwaita client for Linux (Rust)
• desktop_dart/ -- Flutter client (cross-platform, incomplete)

These are experimental and not yet ready for general use.

Development

Check types, formatting, and linting:

deno task ok

Build the browser extension:

deno task build_ext

License

This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain. See LICENSE for details.