Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, unconditionally. pvdownloader is a free, independently developed desktop application. We do not inject banner ads, third-party promotional toolbars, browser extensions, or search-engine hijacks into our installers, and no account or subscription is ever required.

No. There is no account system, no email requirement and no activation step. Download the installer, run it, and the application works immediately.

Windows 10 and 11 (x64 and ARM64), macOS 12 Monterey or newer (Apple Silicon and Intel), and modern Linux distributions via AppImage. Windows and macOS builds are unsigned, so your operating system may show a one-time confirmation prompt on first launch.

No. pvdownloader itself is closed-source software. It can however use excellent open-source tools — yt-dlp for extended site support, and FFmpeg for conversion — whose licenses and full attribution are published on our License page.

The free licence covers personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use requires prior written consent. If you would like to use pvdownloader at work, get in touch and commercial licensing may be available.

pvdownloader supports 12 platforms natively and works out of the box for those. Everything else — including the mainstream sites most people reach for first, such as YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and Instagram — is handled by yt-dlp, which is not bundled with the application. On first run pvdownloader explains this and offers a one-click download from the official source. If you already have yt-dlp installed, it will use your own copy instead.

Not necessarily. pvdownloader works without FFmpeg. Features that need it — such as HLS-to-MP4 conversion or audio extraction — will explain why and ask your permission, then download it for you. If you already have FFmpeg installed on your system, pvdownloader will use your own copy instead of downloading one.

Directly from their official distributions, and only after you agree. They are never redistributed by us, and we do not proxy or observe the download. If you prefer, you can install them yourself beforehand and pvdownloader will detect and use them.

The one-click option downloads a GPL build, because that is the most broadly capable build available. Because pvdownloader does not distribute FFmpeg and only runs it as a separate program, its licence creates no obligation for pvdownloader. If you would rather use an LGPL build, install FFmpeg yourself and pvdownloader will use your system copy.

Yes. The application installs and runs without yt-dlp, FFmpeg or aria2. You simply get a smaller feature set: the 12 built-in platforms only, and no conversion or audio extraction.

All network queries originate directly from your computer to the host media servers — unless you configure a proxy, in which case that proxy sees them, on your instruction. There is no pvdownloader middleman server, no central database of what you download, and no analytics or telemetry.

Some platforms require an authenticated session before they will serve a stream. If you enable it, you supply a cookies.txt file yourself — there is no automatic harvesting from Chrome or Firefox. Those cookies are passed only to yt-dlp, only for the request you initiated, and are sent only to the site you are downloading from.

Only if you turn it on. Metadata writing is off by default; when enabled it can embed fields such as the source URL, the title and the channel name into the output file. This happens locally and is never transmitted.

Code-signing certificates are subscription-based and this is a free, independent project, so the builds are unsigned. The warning means your operating system does not recognise the publisher — it is not a virus alert. On Windows, click “More info” on the SmartScreen dialog and then “Run anyway”. On macOS, dismiss the dialog with “Done” rather than “Move to Trash”, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and click “Open Anyway”. Both platform pages carry these steps beside the download buttons. You can confirm the file is the one we published by checking its SHA-256 hash against the value on the Download page.

It handles 4K 60FPS down to 360p, multiplexing MP4, MKV, WebM, MP3, FLAC and WAV. Available quality always depends on what the source platform actually offers — pvdownloader never upscales or re-encodes to fake a higher quality.

Yes. Audio can be isolated to 320kbps MP3, Opus or lossless FLAC, and subtitles can be downloaded or embedded in clean .SRT or .VTT format. Both of these features require FFmpeg.

Yes. pvdownloader can grab high-resolution thumbnails, poster frames and channel banners, which is handy for completing media-library artwork.

The application works with no setup on 12 platforms. Adding yt-dlp with one click extends that to 1,379 more sites, including the mainstream platforms. Both lists are published in full on the Supported Sites page.

Often, yes. If you have a direct link to a media file — one ending in .mp4, .webm, .mov or .m3u8 — paste it and pvdownloader will resolve it without needing any site integration at all. The .m3u8 case is read as an HLS playlist and expanded into its individual quality variants. The link has to be publicly fetchable: hosts that require a cookie or a specific referrer are out of scope for now.

No. pvdownloader downloads the original stream without re-encoding it, so there is no generation loss. Conversion only happens when you explicitly ask for a different container or an extracted audio track.

No, that is the intended default. As of version 1.1.0, closing the window hides pvdownloader to the notification area — the menu bar on macOS — and leaves active downloads running, instead of quitting. The first time you close the window, a notification explains where the app went. To quit completely, use Exit in the tray menu: that always quits, whatever the setting says. If you would rather the close button actually closed the app, turn close-to-tray off in Settings. Minimizing to the tray is a separate option and is off by default. Versions before 1.1.0 quit as soon as the window closed, which is why the change can come as a surprise.

pvdownloader includes automatic background updates. Whenever supported media sites change their video streams or formats, pvdownloader silently downloads and applies quick updates so you never experience interrupted downloads. You can disable update checks in the settings.

No. This is an independent, unpaid project. The author has no obligation to provide updates, bug fixes, new features or technical support — anything provided is at their sole discretion and may be discontinued at any time. See the License page for the full terms.

Platforms change their systems frequently and without notice, which can break extraction until an update ships. Try updating the application first, and if the problem persists make sure you are running the latest yt-dlp and FFmpeg versions.