Bulk Image Downloader

Open-licensed images from Wikimedia Commons and Openverse.

openpix is a small Go CLI for downloading open-licensed images from Wikimedia Commons and Openverse.

It works without API keys, saves to ~/Pictures/openpix by default, and is meant to feel simple: run a command, get images.

• No sign-up or API keys
• Good for wallpapers, moodboards, demos, and quick image gathering
• Works nicely both interactively and in scripts

Install

go install github.com/panakour/openpix@latest

Or download a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases.

Release builds target:

• macOS (arm64)
• Linux (amd64)
• Windows (amd64)

Quick Start

openpix wikimedia                            # random Featured Pictures
openpix wikimedia -q aurora -n 10           # search Wikimedia Commons
openpix openverse -q forest                 # search Openverse
openpix openverse -q dog --size small       # small images
openpix openverse -q art -l cc0,by-sa       # filter by license
openpix openverse -q mountains --silent     # script-friendly output

Run openpix --help or openpix <command> --help for the full command and flag list.

openpix itself prints help. Real work happens through the wikimedia and openverse subcommands.

Where Images Come From

wikimedia

• With no query, it samples Featured Pictures from Wikimedia Commons.
• With --query, it performs a full-text Commons search for bitmap images.

openverse

• Uses the Openverse image API.
• Supports --license filtering.
• Supports --size buckets: small, medium, large.

Shared filters

• --min-width and --min-height work across providers.
• Unknown image dimensions are treated as unknown, not automatic failures.

What You Get

• Safe downloads: files only appear in their final name once the download is complete.
• Friendly reruns: existing non-empty files are skipped instead of downloaded again.
• Sensible network behavior: transient failures retry and respect Retry-After.
• Good terminal UX: interactive TTYs get the Bubble Tea UI, while pipes, CI, and --silent stay plain.
• Best-effort batches: one bad image does not kill the whole run.

For Developers

Requirements

• Go 1.26+
• golangci-lint
• goreleaser only if you want to test release packaging locally

Useful local runs

go run . --help
go run . wikimedia -q aurora -n 3
go run . openverse -q forest -n 3

Checks

go test -race ./...
go vet ./...
golangci-lint run
go build ./...

Optional local release smoke test

goreleaser release --snapshot --clean

Project Layout

main.go              program entrypoint
internal/cli/        cobra commands and Bubble Tea UI
internal/provider/   provider interface plus Wikimedia and Openverse
internal/download/   concurrent download pipeline and filename generation
internal/httpx/      retrying HTTP client wrapper

Contributing

Small, direct changes fit this project best. Prefer explicit behavior, standard library patterns, and tests that exercise real behavior through httptest.

If you are contributing as a coding agent or want the repo-specific engineering notes, see AGENTS.md.

Licensing Note

openpix is MIT-licensed, but downloaded images still carry their own source licenses and attribution requirements. The tool targets open-license sources, but you should still inspect metadata before redistribution or reuse.

License

MIT