What's new

September 5, 2026

TikTok videos have their sound back

TikTok downloads had gone silent — the video played, the audio didn’t. Annoyingly, only on Apple software: the same file played perfectly with sound in VLC and in Chrome, which is a good way for a bug to hide for a while. In QuickTime, Photos and iMessage previews it was mute.

The file wasn’t broken, it was assembled wrong. TikTok recently started publishing its sharpest videos as a picture-only stream, leaving downloot to pair it with a separate soundtrack — and the only soundtrack TikTok offers on its own is an MP3. An MP3 is fine everywhere else on earth and not something Apple’s players will read inside a video file, so they played the picture and skipped the audio without a word.

downloot now takes TikTok’s ordinary ready-made video instead, which already has the sound in it and opens anywhere. If you saved a silent TikTok, grab the link again — the new one will have audio.

August 25, 2026

downloot now tells you when “Best” isn’t the biggest

downloot has always defaulted to the version of a video that opens in QuickTime, Photos and Final Cut, even when a site publishes something sharper in a format those players refuse. That’s still the default and it isn’t changing — but until now the app didn’t mention it. The button said Best · 4K and quietly gave you 1080p.

Now it says what it will actually give you, and when a sharper version exists the finished-download screen offers it: Get 4K · converts here. Take it and downloot fetches the bigger version and re-encodes it on your own machine — nothing is uploaded, and if your browser can’t manage it you simply keep the file you already have. Ignore it and nothing changes.

You can still set a permanent preference in Settings ▸ Video format. And audio downloads now name the formats properly: M4A (AAC) alongside MP3, so it’s clear which is which.

August 25, 2026

Instagram videos open in QuickTime again

Instagram downloads had started coming back as files QuickTime, Photos and iMessage all refuse to open — the “this file contains some media which isn’t compatible” dialog. Nothing was wrong with the file; it was just recorded in a format Apple’s players don’t read.

Instagram quietly stopped publishing the widely-playable version of its videos in the place we were looking for it. It’s still there, just somewhere else on the page, and downloot now knows to go and get it. Instagram links download as ordinary H.264 again, which is the version that opens everywhere.

The catch, and it’s the same trade as always: that copy tops out at 720p, where the version Apple can’t play goes to 1080p. If you’d rather have the bigger picture and open it in VLC, Settings ▸ Video format ▸ Highest quality still gets you exactly what it did before.

August 23, 2026

Downloads that sat there saying “waiting his turn”

If you tried to download anything between Friday night and Sunday, it very likely just sat on Robby's waiting his turn at the dumpster and never moved. That wasn't your link or your connection, and it wasn't only Instagram — it was everything. We're sorry, and sorrier that it took someone telling us to notice.

downloot runs a few downloads at a time and queues the rest. On Friday night three of them wedged partway through and simply never finished or failed — they just stopped, holding all three slots. Everything anyone asked for after that queued behind them, forever. The site itself looked perfectly healthy from where we were standing, which is why nothing flagged it.

Downloads are moving again. downloot now watches each one for signs of life and gives up on anything that's genuinely stuck, so a wedged download can cost you one attempt instead of blocking everybody's.

August 23, 2026

Dailymotion works again — and the last note about it was wrong

Dailymotion links have been failing since early August with a login error, on videos that anyone can watch without logging in. The cause was embarrassing: it was us. downloot keeps a small set of saved sign-ins to help with sites that need one, and the Dailymotion entry in it had gone stale. Handing over an expired pass turned out to be worse than handing over nothing at all — Dailymotion rejected the request, where an ordinary anonymous one would have worked.

downloot no longer sends anything saved to Dailymotion. It just asks like a normal visitor, which is all that was ever needed there. Public videos work again.

The last update said Dailymotion was working. It wasn't, and we should have checked rather than assumed. Sorry — if a link is still failing for you, the Report this link button on the error is the fastest way to get it in front of us.

August 20, 2026

Vimeo works again, and broken links stop pretending they'll fix themselves

Vimeo had been failing for a while, and we're sorry it took this long. Vimeo changed things so that even public videos now require a logged-in account to fetch, which our downloader wasn't set up for. It is now, and Vimeo links work again. Dailymotion had a rough patch over the same period for an unrelated reason and is working too, though it's the flakier of the two.

The more annoying half of this: while those two were broken, downloot told you *"give it another go in a moment"*. That was never going to help. It's the message we show when something looks like a temporary hiccup, and downloot had genuinely mistaken a permanent "this needs a login" for a passing one, so it kept inviting you to retry something that could not work.

downloot now recognises a login wall for what it is, whichever site it comes from, and says so plainly instead of sending you round the loop. When a retry won't help, we'd rather tell you that than waste your time.

August 15, 2026

TikTok broke again, so we gave it a backup

TikTok stopped working for a few days this week. The site changed something on its end that our main downloading engine couldn't handle, and the usual self-repair (grabbing a newer build of that engine) didn't fix it this time. Every other site stayed fine. TikTok just sat there failing.

It's back, and it's sturdier now. When our main engine hits a TikTok video it can't read, downloot automatically tries a second, completely separate way of fetching the video and audio. You shouldn't notice the switch happen, your download just finishes.

It's not a general fix, this backup only kicks in for TikTok, and only after the usual method has genuinely failed, so nothing changes for the sites that were already working fine. But if TikTok breaks again before the real fix lands upstream, downloot now has somewhere else to turn.

August 14, 2026

4K that still opens in QuickTime, converted on your own machine

Until yesterday you had to pick one: the highest resolution, or a file that actually opens. YouTube only publishes 4K in newer formats, and Apple's players can't read them. Settings ▸ Video format ▸ Highest + convert now gets you both. downloot grabs the best version, then re-encodes it to H.264 right in your browser, on your own hardware. Nothing leaves your machine. The conversion happens on the page you're already looking at.

It costs you a wait, and a little quality (a re-encode is never quite the original). Long or very large videos get handed over unconverted instead of tying up your tab for half an hour, and if your browser can't do the encoding, you just get the file as it came. Either way, you end up with something that plays.

Most compatible is still the default, and still instant. This one's for when you want the 4K and the double-click, both.

August 14, 2026

Files that open in QuickTime, not just VLC

Some downloads played fine in VLC and did nothing in QuickTime, Photos, or iMessage. Nothing was actually corrupted, the file was just addressed to a decoder Apple doesn't ship. Sites publish the same video more than once, in different formats, and downloot was grabbing the newest one (AV1 on YouTube, VP9 on Instagram), which Apple's players can't decode.

downloot now asks for H.264 and AAC first, the pair every player made this century understands. That's the new default, and for most links it costs you nothing at all.

Where it does cost something, you get to choose. YouTube only publishes 4K in the newer formats, and some Instagram posts only go above 720p in them. Settings ▸ Video format has a Highest quality option for when you'd rather have the bigger file and open it in VLC or your browser. Compatible stays the default, because a video you can't open isn't really the better one.

August 14, 2026

"That link leads nowhere" was sometimes a lie

Instagram lets people limit who can see a post, and downloot handled that badly: it reported the post as removed. So you'd paste a reel you were watching seconds earlier and get told it was gone. It wasn't. You were signed in. downloot isn't.

downloot now says what's actually going on, and where it can, tries again as a signed-in visitor before giving up. Public posts are unaffected, they take the same anonymous route they always have.

August 11, 2026

Pinterest photos, at last (and honestly, they were broken)

Most Pins are pictures, not videos, and until today pasting one of those got you a shrug and a message blaming Pinterest. That was our bug, not theirs: downloot went looking for a video, found none, and assumed the worst. Paste a photo Pin now and you get the full-size original image, the one the pinner uploaded, not the smaller copy a right-click saves.

Video Pins and idea pins work exactly as before. There's a new Pinterest image downloader page if you want the short version, and Pinterest now gets its own line on Robby's vitals, checked hourly like everywhere else.

Sorry to anyone who tried a Pin and quietly gave up. It really did look like Pinterest's fault from where you were standing.

August 11, 2026

The outage strip now knows when to leave

The amber "something's having trouble" line above the loot bar had done its job the moment you'd read it. After that it was just a warning sitting on top of the thing you came here for, on every visit, for as long as the outage lasted. It now closes itself after fifteen seconds, and there's an ✕ if you'd rather not wait that long.

It still comes back if the news changes, and Robby's vitals is always there for the full picture.

August 7, 2026

YouTube downloads that stop crawling, and stop dying at 80%

YouTube hands out a video link and then quietly throttles anyone who pulls it in one long go, which is why a twenty-minute video could take close to twenty minutes to save. downloot now asks for it in 8MB pieces, the way a video player does. Same file, same quality, it just arrives at the speed your connection can actually manage.

Those links also expire, and until now a long download that outlived its link would fail near the end and make you start over from scratch. downloot now notices, quietly fetches a fresh link, and picks up exactly where it left off. You'll see the progress bar pause for a beat and carry on. No restart, no re-downloading what you already had.

Both of these are YouTube-only, because YouTube is the only one doing this. Everything else was already fine.

August 3, 2026

Loot history, status without leaving, and files that remember where they came from

Your recent loot list grew up into a proper history. Tap the download icon to save a file again while it's still on our server (about 30 minutes), or the loot icon to fetch it fresh after that. Clear it any time, it lives only in your browser, like everything else about you.

Status now opens right on the page, the same way settings does, so you don't have to lose your link just to check whether a site is down. The full status page is still there for sharing and bookmarking.

Downloaded videos and audio now carry their own story in the file's metadata: the source's title, uploader and date (the tags your player actually shows), plus a small note that downloot fetched it. On the pixels themselves? Nothing. Watermarks are for the other guys.

Also: pasting an adult link now offers the unlock right on the spot instead of pointing you at a switch somewhere else, and the loot bar lost a stray double outline it had been wearing.

August 3, 2026

Bad news up front, and share straight from other apps

If a site downloot checks is having trouble, the home page now says so before you paste, a small amber strip with the same plain English line as Robby's vitals. No more finding out about an outage by watching your own download fail.

On Android, downloot is now a share target. Install it from your browser menu ("Add to home screen"), and "Share → downloot" from TikTok, YouTube, or anywhere else drops the link straight into the loot bar and starts sniffing. No copying, switching apps, pasting.

The privacy page also got more specific, including exactly what a link report sends us (the link and the error code, your settings never leave your browser).

August 3, 2026

A tidier header: three buttons, one home for everything

The header was collecting controls the way Robby collects loot: help, theme, sound, an 18+ switch, a menu, six things fighting over a strip of phone screen. It's down to three now: the menu (how it works, every downloader, every page), the theme toggle (still one tap, some things deserve the front row), and the settings gear (everything else: sound, 18+, default quality and format).

Nothing was removed. Sound and the 18+ switch just moved into settings, where your choices were already being remembered. The footer got the same treatment: the things you reach for in the moment come first, the reference pages come after.

August 3, 2026

See a link fail that should work? Tell us in one tap

Error screens now have a small "This link should work, report it" button. One tap sends us the link and the error you saw, nothing else, nothing about you, and sites that rack up reports jump our queue.

Not every failure is ours to fix (private videos, deleted posts, and typo'd links fail on a perfectly healthy day), but when a site genuinely breaks, your reports are how we find out faster. Between this, the hourly site checks, and Robby's vitals, a real breakage now has three ways to get caught.

August 3, 2026

Set it once: downloot now remembers how you like your loot

There's a new settings panel behind the gear icon. Tell downloot once that you always want audio as MP3, or video capped at 1080p to save data, and every link you paste from then on starts from that choice. One paste, one click, done.

The quality setting is a ceiling, not a promise. If a link tops out lower than your preference, you just get its best. And it's only the starting point, every download still shows all the formats, so you can override any time.

Settings are saved in your browser only. downloot has no accounts, and your preferences never leave your device.

August 3, 2026

A page for what's new

You're reading it. downloot now has a proper updates page, written by us, for you. When something changes, gets better, or breaks, this is where we'll say so in plain English. No commit hashes, no jargon.

We backfilled the story so far below, including the parts where things broke. Every site downloot saves from changes constantly, and a downloader that pretends it never breaks is lying to you. The honest version of this page is the useful one.

For whether downloot is working right now, check Robby's vitals. This page is the longer story.

August 2, 2026

TikTok broke quietly. It's fixed, and it can't break quietly again

TikTok downloads stopped working for about a day while everything else stayed green. The cause was deep in the plumbing: TikTok turns away connections that don't look like they come from a real browser, and the library we use for that disguise had silently drifted to a version our engine refuses to use. No error, no alarm, just every TikTok link failing.

It's fixed, and we changed two things so it stays fixed. The disguise library is now installed in lockstep with the engine, so the two can't drift apart again. And downloot checks its own disguise on a timer now, if it ever goes missing, we find out from a dashboard within minutes instead of from your failed download.

One detail for the curious: TikTok answers a Chrome-shaped request with a page our engine can't read, but answers a Safari-shaped one perfectly, every time. So downloot now introduces itself to TikTok as Safari.

August 2, 2026

A 1984 Macintosh theme

The theme toggle now cycles light, dark, and terminal. Terminal isn't a color swap, it's a full 1-bit Macintosh System 1 redesign: bitmap type, dithered shading, the app sitting in a titled window on the classic desktop pattern, Robby rendered in pure black and white. Even the confetti goes monochrome.

It's completely unnecessary and we love it. Tap the theme button twice from light mode to see it.

August 1, 2026

A public status page, wider desktops, and stubborner retries

When a link fails, the first question is always: is it me, or is it downloot? Robby's vitals answers that in one sentence, above the fold. It shows whether downloot can currently reach each of the big sites, checked about every hour, linked from the footer, right where you are when a download just failed.

The app also stopped pretending every screen is a phone. On big displays the layout actually breathes now. And the sites that fail intermittently for no real reason (looking at you, TikTok and X) get a couple of quiet retries before we ever show you an error.

July 28, 2026

downloot learned to fix itself

Sites break downloaders all the time, that's the business. The fixes usually ship within days in the open-source engine we build on. downloot now closes that gap itself: when it recognizes the fingerprint of a broken site extractor, it fetches the newest engine build, verifies it actually works, swaps it in live, and retries your download. You get a slow success instead of an error, usually without anyone touching anything.

We also rewrote our error messages. You'll never again see raw engine output (once upon a time a failed Instagram link told you to "report this issue" to a project you'd never heard of, sorry about that). And we stopped telling people a public video was "private": that message was YouTube suspecting our server of being a bot, which is our problem to solve, not yours.

The embarrassing one: in mid-July, TikTok (and most other sites) failed for almost a week, and the actual culprit was our own proxy, which sat in front of every request and had quietly died. Only YouTube ever needed it. The proxy is now scoped to just the sites that require it, and a circuit breaker routes around it automatically if it dies again. That particular outage is structurally impossible now.

downloot also probes each major site every hour now, so when something breaks we usually know before you do.

July 21, 2026

Faster sniffing, a loot counter, and save-to-Photos

Pasting a link now identifies the media noticeably faster, we cut a good chunk of latency out of the sniffing step.

The footer now shows the all-time loot counter: every download downloot has ever served. It keeps counting whether or not you're watching.

On phones: downloads can go straight to your photo library instead of a downloads folder, and the page no longer zooms in when you tap the link box.

July 8, 2026

Robby Run gets a leaderboard

The little runner behind the app is now a proper competition: all-time and daily leaderboards, nicknames, share cards that show off your rank. Scores get validated by replaying your run on the server, so the leaderboard stays honest. Nice try, though.

Also new: a coin-burst celebration when your download lands, because a plain progress bar hitting 100% never made anyone smile.

June 24, 2026

Why we don't run ads

downloot got an About page and a Privacy page, which mostly exist to say one thing clearly: no ads, no "PRO" plan, no accounts, no selling data, ever. Every other downloader we tried was a minefield of fake download buttons and pop-ups, and the entire reason downloot exists is to be the opposite of that.

It runs on coffee instead. Optional, appreciated.

June 18, 2026

downloot is born

Paste a link from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit, and 1800+ other sites, downloot sniffs out the real media file and hands it to you. Pick your resolution, or take just the audio as MP3. Free, ad-free, no sign-up.

And because big downloads take a moment, there's a raccoon. Press space while you wait and Robby sets off across a pixel city, double-jumping trash cans, dodging pest control, grabbing loot. We'd rather hand you a few seconds of delight than a banner ad.