The app provides a visual ‘shell’ for YT-DLP, a command line that allows you to pull in video and audio from a wide range of websites.

Dennis Gandasoebrata

stacher 2

If you regularly watch videos, for example on YouTube or Instagram, chances are you’ll want to download them for offline viewing. External programs can help you with this. A good example is Stacher, which is available as an app for Windows, macOS and Linux. The program forms a visual ‘shell’ for YT-DLP. This is a command line that allows you to pull in video and audio from a large number of websites. Stacher’s interface makes that step more user-friendly.

The makers have paid a lot of attention to the appearance of the software. An overview shows all the videos you want to download, with a thumbnail so you can quickly recognize the clip in question. On the far right you will find the download progress: this is visualized in a circle. It is nice that you can download the video files in different resolutions. You can simply choose the highest or last resolution, but also a specific video format if available. You can adjust the title of the videos and use the suggestions Stacher provides.

For more advanced users, it is possible to run a specific command after each video download. For example, the file needs to be moved to another folder. Moreover, you can perform limited edits to the video, such as trimming the clip and converting the video file into an animated GIF.
Attention has also been paid to the automation of tasks, so that you can, for example, quickly download an entire playlist in one go.


Product: Stacher
www.stacher.io

4 stars

Platform: MacOS, Windows, Linux

Pros:
* attractive user environment
* option to automate tasks:

Negatives:
* limited explanation of additional commands