In Operation
Here’s Parabolic in action. We’re downloading 4K videos which are published without copyright. We’re showing the GTK version.
The interface is well designed with lots of options available to configure individual downloads and playlists.
The software supports downloading videos in multiple formats (mp4, webm, mp3, opus, flac, and wav). As we show, it can download multiple files at once, and also supports downloading metadata and video subtitles.
There’s lots of customization available. Here’s most of them:
- User Interface options:
- Theme – choose between light, dark or system.
- Completed notification triggers – either for each download, or when all downloads have been completed (or never).
- Prevent suspend of the system.
- Recover crashed downloads.
- Download immediately after validation.
- Set the download history length – the default is one week, but this can be changed to a day, month, three months, forever (or never).
- Download options:
- Set the maximum number of active downloads (5 by default).
- Option to override existing files.
- Limit filename characters.
- Include Media Id in title after validation.
- Include auto-generated subtitles.
- Set the preferred video codec (VP9, AV1, or H.264).
- Preferred subtitle format (VTT, SRT, ASS, or LRC).
- Downloader:
- Verbose logging.
- Use SponsorBlock for YouTube.
- Set a speed limit.
- Proxy URL.
- Cookies from Browser.
- Converter:
- Embed metadata.
- Embed chapters.
- Embed subtitles.
- Crop audio thumbnails.
- Remove source data.
- aria2:
- User aria2.
- Set maximum connections per server.
- Set minimum split size.
Summary
If you love yt-dlp but hate the command-line, give Parabolic a try. It’s well written, sports an attractive and easy-to-use UI, offers bags of customization options, and it’s actively maintained.
Website: nickvision.org/parabolic.html
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Nick Logozzo
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Parabolic is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary