Made a native GUI download manager for Linux (Tauri/Rust) - multi‑connection, torrents, magnets, yt‑dlp capture
Hey folks - I've been building (vibecoding) DownMan, a download manager for Linux, and just pushed the first public release. Sharing for feedback.
Why: I wanted a proper GUI download manager that doesn't eat 500 MB of RAM. Most options were heavyweight Electron apps or CLI‑only. DownMan is a small app (Tauri 2 + Rust/React) that drives the aria2 engine, so it idles around ~200–250 MB RAM - it uses the system WebView, no bundled Chromium.
What it does:
- aria2 core - multi‑connection HTTP/FTP, BitTorrent, magnet, Metalink; pause/resume (per‑item and all), global + per‑download speed limits
- Smart routing - automatically picks the right downloader per link, so even extensionless URLs land with correct names/folders
- Media capture - yt‑dlp for 1800+ sites (quality picker, subtitles, SponsorBlock, optional browser cookies); HLS/DASH merged via ffmpeg
- Browser extensions (Chromium + Firefox) that hand links to the app over a local loopback bridge
- Archiving niceties - auto‑sort into Video/Audio/Images/Docs/Archives, duplicate detection, checksum verification (MD5/SHA‑1/256/512), archive auto‑extract, optional ClamAV scan
- Linux‑native touches - tray with live speed, dock/launcher progress, sleep inhibitor while downloading, clipboard link watcher, metered‑connection auto‑pause
- Light/dark themes
Install: .deb (pulls in aria2 + ffmpeg automatically) or a portable AppImage on the releases page. Built/tested on Ubuntu + GNOME, x86_64.
Heads‑up: it's a personal project, first public release (0.1.2) - expect some rough edges, and bug reports/feedback are very welcome.
🔗 github.com/rai-himanshu07/DownMan
Would love feedback on the smart‑routing and media‑capture edge cases, and what features you'd want next.