Open Omni is a fast terminal-first media downloader designed to download videos, audio, and photo galleries from over 1,800 platforms. It combines an interactive text-based user interface (TUI) with command-line flexibility, supporting yt-dlp and gallery-dl under the hood.
Key Features:
Interactive terminal interface for easy clipboard paste, format selection, and progress tracking.
Available via Winget on Windows for seamless installation using the winget command line.
Supports routing downloads through HTTP, HTTPS, or SOCKS5 proxies with optional geolocation bypass.
Throttle download speeds to manage bandwidth usage and skip already downloaded files.
Remove sponsored content and intros during video extraction using SponsorBlock integration.
Select specific formats for audio (including MP3, FLAC, and more) or video containers (like MP4, MKV).
Target Audience and Benefits:
Ideal for users who need a fast, reliable media downloader to extract videos, photos, or audio without browser-based ads or manual command-line setup. Open Omni automates dependency management, making it perfect for developers, content creators, or anyone needing direct access to media from platforms like YouTube, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
With its terminal-first design and built-in automation, Open Omni simplifies media extraction while maintaining local-first privacy and flexibility for both casual users and power users.
README
Fast terminal media downloader and TUI for 1,800+ sites.
Download videos, music, and photo galleries from YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and more.
You want to download a video, an audio track, or a photo set without clicking through suspicious popups, fake download buttons, or ad-laden web converters. You also don't want to memorize dozens of complicated command-line flags.
Open Omni combines the flexibility of an interactive terminal interface with scriptable command-line speed. Paste a link from your clipboard with one key, preview available formats, and download directly to your machine.
Under the hood, Open Omni automatically provisions and manages yt-dlp, gallery-dl, and ffmpeg binaries so you never have to manually configure external dependencies.
Key features
Press o on completion to highlight the downloaded file in your file manager (Explorer, Finder, or Linux file managers).
Route downloads through HTTP, HTTPS, or SOCKS5 proxies with --proxy, or pass country codes with --geo-bypass and --geo-country. Passwords in proxy URLs are masked in logs.
Throttle download speeds with --limit-rate (for example, 1.5M or 500K).
Skip sponsored segments and channel intros during download with --sponsorblock and --sponsorblock-remove.
Automatically routes video extractors to yt-dlp and multi-photo social carousels to gallery-dl.
Skips already-downloaded files using --skip-existing by checking the local history ledger against disk.
Interactive terminal interface with clipboard paste (Tab), format selection, and progress bars.
How It Compares
Open Omni
yt-dlp
Web converters
Interface
Keyboard-driven terminal TUI
Command-line flags
Browser UI with ads
Engines
Auto-provisions yt-dlp, gallery-dl, ffmpeg
Manual binary or Python setup
Hosted / unknown backends
Media
Video, audio, photos & carousels
Video & audio
Inconsistent / compressed
Selection
Interactive checklist (Space / A keys)
Index ranges (--playlist-items)
Single URL at a time
Workflow
Tab clipboard paste → pick format → Enter
Build flags manually
Paste → wait → download
Local-first
100% local, zero telemetry
100% local, open-source
Remote servers & ad trackers
Installation
One-liner (macOS & Linux)
curl -fsSL https://mint.dev.cv | sh
Via Homebrew (macOS & Linux)
brew install OpenSelena/tap/open-omni
Via Winget (Windows)
winget install OpenSelena.OpenOmni
Via npm (Global)
npm install -g open-omni
Run Directly via npx
npx open-omni [url]
Once installed, Open Omni is accessible via any of these commands:
open-omni (canonical)
openomni (hyphen-free)
omni (concise)
oo (ultra-fast alias)
> Requirements: Node 20+ (when using npm or Homebrew; standalone Windows package bundles its own runtime). Extraction engines (yt-dlp, gallery-dl, and ffmpeg) are downloaded automatically to ~/.open-omni/bin on demand.
Quick Start
Launch interactive mode:
open-omni
Or pass a URL directly to inspect available media formats:
open-omni https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Direct scriptable downloads:
# Download highest resolution video directly
open-omni --best
# Watch clipboard and auto-download copied links
open-omni --watch
open-omni -w --best
# Extract audio to MP3 or lossless FLAC in a specific directory
open-omni --mp3 -o ~/Music
open-omni --audio-format flac -o ~/Music
# Download video in specific container format (mp4, mkv, webm)
open-omni --video-format mkv
# Download specific time range or clip section
open-omni --time 01:00-02:30
# Skip items already downloaded and recorded in download ledger
open-omni --skip-existing
# Download with embedded subtitles
open-omni --embed-subs --subs=en,es
# Embed metadata tags and chapter markers into media container
open-omni --metadata --embed-chapters
# Download thumbnail artwork and embed into file
open-omni --thumb --embed-thumb
# Download only photos from an Instagram or X gallery
open-omni --photos-only
# Zero-config: extract cookies automatically from local browser session
open-omni --cookies-from-browser auto
# Target a specific browser or profile explicitly
open-omni --cookies-from-browser firefox
# Download using an exported Netscape cookie file
open-omni --cookies ~/cookies.txt
# Route downloads through HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy
open-omni --proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080
# Bypass geographic restriction with synthetic header or country code
open-omni --geo-bypass
open-omni --geo-country US
# Throttle bandwidth consumption
open-omni --limit-rate 1.5M
# Remove sponsored segments using SponsorBlock
open-omni --sponsorblock
open-omni --sponsorblock-remove sponsor,intro
# Custom filename template
open-omni --output-template "%(uploader)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s"
# Parallel batch downloads (e.g. 4 concurrent downloads)
open-omni --concurrency 4
# Update bundled extraction engines (yt-dlp and gallery-dl)
open-omni -U
Interactive Interface
URL Input: Paste URLs directly or press Tab to insert the current clipboard contents.
Format Picker: Select from highest quality video, optimized 1080p/720p tiers, or audio-only extraction.
Playlists & Carousels: Toggle individual tracks with Space or select all with A.
Themes: Switch between dark, light, and auto terminal palette integration.
Reveal in Folder: Press O on completion screen to reveal downloaded media in your native file manager.
No Remote Telemetry: No tracking, metrics, analytics, or third-party servers.
Direct Fetch: Network connections are established exclusively between your computer and the target media platform.
Local Storage: All media, metadata, and engine binaries remain under your local user directory.
Fair Use Notice
Open Omni is an open-source educational utility intended for personal archiving, local offline study, and fair-use research.
Copyright and Tool Purpose
The software functions as an automated terminal interface to established media extraction backends (yt-dlp and gallery-dl). Analogous to a standard web browser or media player, Open Omni retrieves publicly available media streams strictly at the direct instruction of the user. Open Omni does not operate remote media servers, store or index content, bypass digital rights management (DRM) encryption, or circumvent technical access controls or digital paywalls.
Fair Use Principles
Applicable copyright laws (such as Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act and comparable fair-dealing statutes internationally) permit the use of copyrighted works without express authorization under specific circumstances, including:
Non-commercial personal archiving and format shifting for offline viewing
Criticism, commentary, parody, and transformative research
News reporting, classroom teaching, scholarship, and academic analysis
Whether a specific download or utilization qualifies as fair use depends on jurisdictional statutory factors, including the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect upon the potential market or value of the work.
User Responsibility & Disclaimers
No Grant of Ownership or Rights: Open Omni is an open-source tool and does not grant users copyright ownership, licenses, or authorization to reproduce, distribute, publicly display, or monetize protected content unlawfully.
User Responsibility: Users are solely responsible for ensuring that their capture and subsequent use of any media complies with applicable local copyright laws, intellectual property rights, and third-party terms of service.
Not Legal Advice: This notice is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute formal legal counsel.
