Hitomi Downloader: versatile media downloader for Windows
Hitomi Downloader is an open source media downloader for Microsoft's Windows operating system that can be extended with user scripts.
The downloader supports downloads from many sites by default, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Flickr, Imgur, Instagram, the Wayback Machine, Weibo and Pinterest. Several manga sites, as well as adult sites and services are supported as well by the downloader by default. All sits that youtube-dl supports are supported by Hitomi Downloader as well.
Users may extend support through scripts. A selection of scripts is available for download on the project's GitHub page.
The download of the application is quite large; it has a size of over 80 Megabytes. Windows may throw a SmartScreen error message on first run. Once that is bypassed, the application's main interface is loaded.
To get started, paste any URL from a supported site into the address field of the application. You may also type URLs, but pasting may be faster. A click on the download button connects to the URL and starts the downloads, provided that content is found on the page that can be downloaded.
First time users may want to open the settings first by selecting Options > Preferences. There they find a number of important options, including preferences to set download folders for each of the supported services, options for specific services such as YouTube or Instagram, options to compress certain downloads to zip files, and advanced preferences to set up a program password, proxy, or file exclusions among many more.
YouTube is set up to download the highest quality version by default. You can change that to a different default resolution and may also change the default format from mp4 to mp3, if you want audio only.
Hitomi Downloader supports torrents as well, but most users may want to use dedicated torrent clients for these downloads as they provide more options and preferences.
Users have access to several customization options and nice-to-have features. Hitomi Downloader may monitor the clipboard for URLs of supported services, supports light and dark modes, tasks, which can be imported and exported, and interface customizations.
Closing Words
Hitomi Downloader is an open source media downloader that supports audio, video and image sites for the most part. It is easy to use, but provides a good set of features and options for its users.
Some may prefer other downloaders, such as Internet Download Manager, Bulk Image Downloader, or youtube-dl, or one of its forks, instead.
All in all, it is a versatile program, if you can look beyond its large size.
Now You: which downloader do you use, if any?
What is evident is that github is no longer a reliable host for these kinds of application. There have been countless examples over the years but things are just intensifying. I hate to say it but maybe its time to undermine the entire system and seek hosting in countries such as Russia.
I am sure there is software available to run your own github like website using GitBucket or something.
IDM is my current choice. However, it’s only free for 30 days and the video or audio formats downloaded cannot be changed.
Check the detailed review:
https://reviews.aolor.com/internet-download-manager-idm-review-best-free-video-downloader-reviews/
I use 4K Downloader Free Version. Very good and very fast.
Same people who complain about Microsoft, Google, Electron apps etc… are probably the same ones praising Jdownloader lol
I mean I use Jdownloader to download from hosts, but nothing beats yt-dlp (I use ytdl-patched) to download videos or sound files or do conversion if you have ffmpeg but also to watch stuff in the video playes like mpv or mpc-be/hc without downloading anything and bypassing 18+ videos from youtube so nobody even needs to log in to watch any video and add subtitles (or load them) if needed.
But for downloaders, well, even Windows includes curl and it is not hard to download wget or aria2 for the ones who don’t mind terminal stuff, browser to be honest should be enough for most people.
The only advantage I found in jdownloader as a GUI downloader is that it is easy to change the ‘chunks per download’ to max 20, but most hosts don’t allow that and some websites would even say that they can ban you if you use that feature to have too many connections to their servers.
Anyway, just like you said “screenshot is not needed because I don’t need them in a browser”, maybe it is time to say downloader managers are useless because it is in rare cases when people would need one, no?
I’m always sceptical about the privacy in apps where the forced updates bypass the proxy.
Chinese software. Defender block some features.
App removed.
I also made script based downloader like this before. I stopped developing it after I realized jDownloader and Hitomi and other script based downloaders already exists lol.
The software appears to be 64-bit only.
JDownloader2 for me. Easy to use, clear interface and regularly auto-updated. Been using it for years.
been using Ant but will try this out.
Nothing beats jDownloader. It downloads and converts YouTube to mp3. And works on sites like Rapidgator.com
Can’t agree more. JDownloader has been my best tool for years to d/l media files over various sites.
I guess some people may need a dedicated “media downloader”. In my own case, I don’t see why I should bother with something like that.
Allow me to go a little bit off-topic: for the sake of curiosity, I’d like to have an idea what percentage of internet users actually use this kind of dedicated media download software. Is it closer to 25% or 75%? Does someone have a clue?
Even more in general, I’d very much like to know the user percentages of all kinds of popular software. Just like we already have some “market share” indicators for browsers, I’d like to have the same for all other program categories. Does someone know where to find a complete set of reliable, actual, research-based numbers?
For example, exactly what percentage of Windows PCs still have any version of Microsoft Word on them? Etc. etc., that’s the kind of thing I’d like to know.
And also something like this: if I were to create a perfectly “average” PC, than what specific programs/utilities would typically be installed on it? For example, is CCleaner present on a majority of home computers? And if I could compare the programs installed on an average European and an average US home computer, then would there be some noticeable differences, software-wise?
Again, if someone can point me to a really serious, reliable source to satisfy this kind of curiosity, then thanks, much obliged!
Do you know how many people speak French or German or certain Italian dialects and I mean on a percentage basis? I know a bit off topic but curious nonetheless because it seems in today’s world everyone is more interested in numbers.
Scripts here: https://github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/wiki/Scripts
Free Download Manager now supports addons (as I had hoped) and as of last month someone has created an addon for yt-dlp so that is very much helpful. It still has a few minor issues but with that kind of support it should fill the gap well.
Here is a link for FDM yt-dlp addon:
https://github.com/meowcateatrat/elephant
Link for Hitomi Scripts:
https://github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/wiki/Scripts
Whilst Shithub has nuked FireDM it can still be downloaded at softpedia all be it a slightly older version.
The link to the scripts goes to a youtube video. Please fix it.
https://github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/wiki/Scripts
Or
https://github-wiki-see.page/m/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/wiki/How-to-write-a-script
i think this is the link to the scripts
https://github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/wiki/Scripts
wrong link to github page
Good timing! After FireDM (formerly PyIDM) got nuked from Github, I was on the lookout for decent alternatives. Hadn’t heard of Hitomi Downloader before but it looks really good. It’d be perfect if there was an option to download Youtube audio as m4a instead of mp3 to avoid quality loss during conversion.
Out of curiosity, do you know what happened? I read a post on Reddit, but didn’t understand why. At most you can retrieve the working version before the latest on VideoHelp and, perhaps, manually update the youtube.dl and yt-dlp libraries.
Not a big deal for me that at most I used it sporadically for long videos such as conferences on YouTube to archive, but I was still a powerful media downloader to have just in case.
PS: you can use JDownloader to retrieve only audio .m4a.
What I find really interesting is that the author created one last update that basically disabled the program. You can undo this by reverting to the previous working build (2022.2.5)
Go to the lib folder in the FireDM root. Delete the “firedm” folder and rename “firedm_bkup” to just “firedm”. Don’t update the main prog again tho.
I can only guess, but I have a strong suspicion Google had a hand in this. If the dev simply lost interest, then there’s no reason to wipe everything, so clearly there was some strong-arming involved. Google has clear motive to crackdown on youtube-dl and any tools which make downloading from Youtube more convenient.
Microsoft may also be involved as I wouldn’t put it past them to make some backroom deals to appease corporate media partners. DuckDuckGo was recently in the news for censoring certain results including mention of youtube-dl, but it turned out it was actually because of Bing data, which is controlled by Microsoft. Github is also owned by Microsoft, so while I don’t want to go deep into conspiracy theories, it’s hard to deny there’s a pattern emerging here.
Microsoft wants everything to be a service, tied in some way to an account that can be tracked and monetized. They’re pushing everything to the “cloud” so an internet connection becomes like a shackle tethering you to Microsoft. Tools that make media available for offline usage goes against this imperative and therefore must be nipped in the bud. But going full scorched-earth would alert the masses and draw negative press and pushback, so they’re likely taking down projects slowly and quietly.
The erasure of privacy and freedom happens one inch at a time.
The CIA might as well rename itself GMA. Google, Microsoft, Apple.
Could be.
Well, in any case if you change to “2022.4.14” inside the version.py file (FireDM\Lib\Firedm), libraries can be updated without updating also to the latest version of the program that gave issues.
It seems to me that everything still works fine after doing it.
can you tell me how to update only yt-dlp in firedm 2022.4.14.
@Akg
At Softpedia or VideoHelp the latest (fully working) version is 2022.2.5. It seems to me that if you change the file mentioned above (2022.2.5 –> 2022.4.14 or higher invented version like 2025.5.5) when you perform the automatic update FireDM is ‘Up to date’ and you can update only yt-dlp: https://postimg.cc/mhhtjwxp
But you can still easy use yt-dlp or MPV+yt-dlp together with some firefox extensions like ‘Open With’, ‘Contextsearch Web-Ext’ and ‘External Application Button’. Or you can use ‘VideoDownloadHelper’ (or ‘The Stream Detector’) coupled with ‘Download With JDownloader’ or other programs\yt-dlp GUI. Now I read thanks to another user that there is also a dedicated add-on for FreeDownloadManager.
There is no lack of alternatives.
thanks for the help.
https://github.com/oleksis/youtube-dl-gui
This will DL the parts separately.