
Reelsnag — Desktop yt-dlp GUI for Backing Up Your Own Videos
Back up your own videos — a friendly desktop yt-dlp.
Reelsnag wraps the open-source yt-dlp engine in a clean, dark-mode desktop app: paste a URL, pick a quality, queue it. It's for creators backing up their own uploads, archivists saving Creative Commons and public-domain footage, and anyone who wants permitted content off someone else's server and onto their own drive — no terminal, no flags. Typical "downloader" subscription sites charge $10–15/mo and proxy your files through their servers; Reelsnag is $24 once and nothing ever leaves your machine. Pays for itself in under two months.
Paste a URL → probe: title, thumbnail, duration, and the full format list via yt-dlp
Real download queue: 1–3 concurrent jobs, live progress/speed/ETA, retry, cancel, open-in-folder
Optional start/end trim per job with fast stream-copy and accurate re-encode fallback
MP3 extraction with a bitrate picker (128/192/320 kbps)
Subtitle/auto-caption downloads as .srt alongside the video
Batch mode: paste a URL list or load a .txt file, enqueue everything at once
One-click "Update yt-dlp" — extractors break weekly; this keeps it working
Local history, no account, no telemetry
Runs as a Windows desktop app. Personal use only — respect platform ToS and copyright law.
What's included:
Windows installer download (build via npm run dist)
Full source access — https://github.com/bensblueprints/reelsnag (MIT)
Lifetime v1 updates
Setup guide (README quick start)
Premium tiers coming later
