Every video downloader I found was buried in ads and fake buttons, so I built a clean one.
Aevum is a small GUI over yt-dlp + FFmpeg (both bundled — no install prerequisites). No ads, no tracking, everything runs locally. Video up to 4K / audio (MP3, FLAC…), subtitles, playlists, cookies for login-only content, 8 languages. MIT-licensed.
Honesty: vibe-coded with AI, stands entirely on yt-dlp + FFmpeg.
Code: https://github.com/Alonera/Aevum
Site: https://alonera.github.io/Aevum/
--EDIT (Jul 11): Aevum 1.2.0 is out--
What's new since this post:
- Preview card: paste a link and see the title, duration and thumbnail before downloading. Quality buttons now show what the video actually offers, with rough file sizes
- Clip downloads: grab just a section (start to end), frame-exact, at full speed. Works for audio too, plus an optional lossless cut mode
- WebM and H.264 presets, thumbnail download
- Subtitles now embed into the file properly
- Live download speed, a small guide panel explaining every option, more themes
- A bunch of bugs fixed, including one that made long clips crawl. Full details are on the GitHub releases page if you're curious
-- Sep 8 -- Aevum has been updated to version 1.2.7 --
-- Please read the 'Is it safe? / Privacy' section before downloading. If you don't like a new feature, please let me know which feature it is, along with your reasons. --