User-Guided Extraction

The User Guided Extraction (UGE) is one of the most powerful Downie features. It allows you to download videos that Downie would otherwise be unable to detect on its own. For example, it is capable to detect videos that require a lot of calculations for retrieving the link, or it’s capable of detecting embedded videos on various sites.

Usually, when Downie is unable to extract the video on its own, it offers you to load the link in UGE. If it doesn’t, you can always enter UGE by selecting Browser > User-Guided Extraction… in the menu bar, or using the Open User-Guided Extraction button in the main window or the menubar popover.

How to use it?

Enter the web page address into the address bar and press Return. Downie will load the page in its browser and will display potential downloads in the right column. To add a download into the download queue, press the + button on the right.

The User-Guided Extraction window also supports downloading images and subtitles. Those are available via buttons in the toolbar. When you click on the images button, you get a grid view with all the images. To download a single image, click on the download button in the image’s bottom-right corner. To download all of the images, click on Download All. For subtitles, you get a menu with available subtitles. Selecting one downloads the file.

Options

In the top-right corner, there is an options button (a cog wheel icon), where you can set a few things:

• mode - macOS, iOS and custom - for more advanced users, this is a User Agent field - i.e. it determines as what browser does the webpage see Downie. Both macOS and iOS modes imitate Safari
• compatibility layer - as some browsers have some browser-specific features that some sites may require, this setting attempts to simulate these features. You may try using this in case the video doesn’t load in the browser or if you encounter some issues with the site.
• pop up windows - by default blocked, you can enable them here
• plug-ins - in macOS mode, you can enable or disable plug-ins - mainly Flash Player

Tips

Sometimes, even UGE doesn’t detect the media content automatically or you get a lot of results and you don’t know which to choose. Here are several tips:

• Use iOS mode. In the top-right corner, there is an options button (a cog wheel icon), where you can switch between macOS and iOS modes. The macOS mode allows plugins such as Flash Player and identifies itself as macOS. Switching to the iOS mode, the browser will act as an iOS device, disallowing the use of plugins and thus forcing HTML5-based playback.
• Look for Direct Downloader. Each result has two lines - the top one contains a preliminary name and the second one contains the type of the download. If the type says Direct Downloader or HLS Stream, it means that Downie has found a direct link to an MP4, FLV, M3U8, DASH, or other media file.
• Play the video. Some sites do not load the media file until you actually hit the play button. Since the UGE works by detecting media that the website loads, you may need to start playing the video. Afterall, this is why it’s called User-Guided Extraction.

I’ve tried using the user-guided extraction, but I’m getting an error about a missing or blocked plugin. What’s up with that?

If you are using Chrome as your primary browser, you are likely getting this message - Chrome uses an embedded version of Flash Player, so the Flash Player either isn’t installed on your system at all, or an older version of it is installed - and the older versions get blocked remotely by Apple. To get Flash working in Downie, make sure the Flash Player plugin is installed system-wide and is up-to-date. To do so, open System Preferences and look for Flash Player preference pane. If it’s not present, you need to go to Adobe’s website and download and install Flash Player. If it is present, open it, go to the Updates tab and press the Check for Updates button. You will need to relaunch Downie after the installation or update.