Date checked: 2026-09-01
Goal: feature-full GUI that is still maintained, fully free, no paywalled or locked features.
yt-dlp has no official GUI. Every frontend shells out to yt-dlp (and usually FFmpeg). Keep the engine current; YouTube breakage is almost always an outdated yt-dlp, not a bad skin.
Only open-source, fully unlocked apps are listed. Closed-source freeware with Premium tiers is omitted.
Best feature-complete Windows frontend with nothing locked: Tartube — stable v2.5.231 (24 May 2026), development v2.5.242 (13 Jul 2026).
r/youtubedl treats it as the most feature-rich GUI. It is LGPL, Windows installer (with optional FFmpeg), no paid edition.
- Channel / playlist / folder library, not just paste-a-URL
- Skip already-downloaded videos, archive copies, livestream / premiere alerts
- Works with yt-dlp (and other compatible downloaders)
- Batch fetches from many sites yt-dlp supports
- Windows 64-bit installer and portable builds on GitHub / SourceForge
GTK UI looks dated. Needs a current yt-dlp binary (Tartube can update it). Not supported on Windows 7/8 or 32-bit.
| App | Latest seen | Best for | License | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Media Downloader | 5.6.5 (7 Aug 2026) | Qt power-user frontend; yt-dlp plus gallery-dl, aria2, wget | GPL | mhogomchungu/media-downloader |
| ytDownloader | v4.0.1 (26 Aug 2026) | Modern Electron app: batch, playlists, cookies, compressor | GPL-3.0 | aandrew-me/ytDownloader |
| Parabolic | 2026.5.0 (24 May 2026) | Polished WinUI app; bundled yt-dlp / FFmpeg / Deno | MIT | NickvisionApps/Parabolic |
All of these ship every listed feature without a paid unlock.
- Open Video Downloader / youtube-dl-gui — popular, simpler, not the feature king
- ytdlp-interface — native Windows, maintained, designed as a simple downloader
- Random “yt-dlp GUI 2026” installers and unaudited “the GUI” marketing sites — historically a malware vector
- Channel archives, subscriptions, skip-already-downloaded → Tartube Windows + FFmpeg installer
- gallery-dl / aria2 in one Qt app → Media Downloader 64-bit Qt6 build
- Current pretty desktop app → ytDownloader v4
- Minimal setup, bundled engine → Parabolic
Whatever you pick, keep yt-dlp current (and FFmpeg; Deno/JS runtime if YouTube extraction needs it).