Firelink/README.md

Firelink

Firelink is a clean SwiftUI download manager for Apple Silicon Macs. The goal is to bring the practical parts of IDM/FDM-style download management to macOS with a native interface, segmented downloads, queue control, automatic file organization, and credential-aware transfers.

This project is early, but it already has a working native prototype, an aria2c-backed download engine, a queue-focused UI, batch link intake, and app-wide settings.

Features

• Native SwiftUI macOS interface.
• Segmented downloads with a per-file connection count that also controls the split count.
• Multiple files downloading at the same time.
• Queue-based downloads with drag-and-drop priority ordering.
• Batch Add Downloads window for pasting one or many links at once.
• Automatic link parsing from newlines, whitespace, and common separators.
• Metadata preview for new downloads, including file size when the server reports it.
• Total required disk space and available disk space summary before adding downloads.
• Per-batch save location override, while keeping automatic file-type folders by default.
• Native macOS Settings window, available from App menu > Settings and the main toolbar.
• Configurable default per-server connection count.
• Configurable parallel file download limit in Settings.
• Per-batch connection controls in the Add Downloads window.
• Sidebar filters for all downloads, queued, active, completed, failed, and file categories.
• Sortable, resizable download table columns with a right-click column chooser.
• Default table columns for file name, size, progress/status, ETA, last try date, and date added.
• Download row context menu with properties, show in Finder, resume, stop, queue, and delete actions.
• Download properties window for editing URL, file name, save location, connection count, and login behavior.
• Delete confirmation with optional move-to-Trash for downloaded or partial files.
• Automatic cleanup of unfinished .aria2 cache files when removing incomplete downloads.
• Automatic save folders under ~/Downloads:
  • Musics
  • Movies
  • Compressed
  • Pictures
  • Documents
  • Other
• Custom download locations per file category.
• Broad file extension detection for audio, video, archive, image, and document formats.
• HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SFTP URL support through aria2c.
• Site login rules with URL pattern matching and Keychain-stored passwords.
• Optional prevention of system sleep while files are downloading, while still allowing display sleep.
• Pause, resume, cancel, delete, progress, speed, ETA, and connection count display.
• Release .app bundle script for local macOS builds.

Engine

This first version uses aria2c as the download engine. It is a better fit than plain curl for the requested IDM/FDM-style behavior because it has segmented downloads, resumable transfers, concurrent downloads, HTTP/FTP/SFTP support, and username/password options built in.

Firelink uses one per-file connection value for both aria2c split count and same-server connection count. That keeps the download behavior close to the familiar IDM-style model: choosing 8 connections splits the file into 8 parallel segments.

Requirements

Install the engine:

brew install aria2

• macOS 14 or newer.
• Apple Silicon Mac.
• Swift 6 toolchain.
• aria2c installed with Homebrew, or bundled into the app resources later.

Run

swift run Firelink

Build a release .app bundle:

make app
open build/Firelink.app

Because the current machine only has Command Line Tools selected, this repository is set up as a Swift Package with a bundling script rather than a generated Xcode project. Opening the package in Xcode will still give you a native macOS app workflow.

Roadmap

• Persist download history, queue order, column choices, and active download state across launches.
• Bundle or manage aria2c automatically so users do not need a separate Homebrew install.
• Add first-class pause/resume semantics with clearer partial-file and cache handling.
• Add per-download and global speed limits, plus scheduler rules for start/stop windows.
• Add retry policies, mirror fallback, and richer failure recovery for unstable servers.
• Add browser integration or a companion extension for capturing download links from Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
• Add cookie/header support for authenticated downloads that require browser sessions.
• Improve site-login editing, credential migration, and matching diagnostics.
• Add duplicate detection for URLs, file names, and already-downloaded files.
• Add checksum/hash verification and optional post-download integrity checks.
• Add download history search, saved filters, and better category management.
• Add signed/notarized release builds, auto-update support, and downloadable GitHub releases.
• Add localization-ready strings and accessibility review for keyboard and VoiceOver workflows.
• Add unit and integration tests for file classification, URL parsing, queue behavior, settings persistence, aria2c progress parsing, and metadata fetching.

License

Firelink is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.