Capability tour

Features guide

What Grablytic can do and where each control lives. Settings paths refer to tabs inside the app unless noted. For the full screen-by-screen manual, see Using Grablytic.

Core engine

Downloading

Paste a link and Grablytic handles the rest — quality selection, queueing, retries, and resume are automatic, with manual control where it matters.

  • Max-quality ladder (up to 4K): video cascades AV1 → VP9 → H264 under your quality ceiling, or pick an explicit format in the Format Picker.
  • Format Picker preview: thumbnail, duration, and stream counts before you commit — muxed streams from non-YouTube sites carry a badge.
  • Batch URLs: paste many links at once, import from clipboard or file, and track per-item status with up to 5 concurrent downloads (Settings → Simultaneous downloads).
  • Playlists: selection screen with multi-select, reverse/shuffle, unavailable-video marking, ranges (1-10), and single-item mode.
  • Per-download controls: every item has an overflow menu — redownload, audio re-fetch, delete (file + history), and its own live log view.
  • History three-dots (v0.0.5): Library → History now uses a three-dots menu per row (play / redownload / delete) with 48dp a11y target.
  • Link Saver + Clipboard (v0.0.5): Home FAB bottom-right opens Link Saver — per-link Delete/Download and Download All; Proceed reads clipboard when input is empty and offers startup import for copied links.
  • Section cutting: download just a slice (e.g. *10:15-20:00) with FFmpeg-only cutting — bad timestamps warn and skip, never fail the job (Advanced settings).
  • Faster fragments: aria2c parallel fetching (up to 16 chunks) on Wi-Fi for progressive sources; DASH/HLS streams always use the native downloader by design.
  • Automatic resume: progress snapshots recover on startup — even after a reboot. Partial files under 24h old rejoin seamlessly.
  • Download archive: already-fetched items are skipped; per-folder archives keep series and channels tidy.
  • Live speed & ETA: smoothed speed sparkline and ETA on every active download card.
  • Tougher networks: rate limits, 10x retries, proxy support, geo-bypass, and per-download VPN hints on blocked content.
Files worth keeping

Media & metadata

Downloads arrive merged, tagged, and embedded — no post-processing homework.

  • Lossless merging: direct stream demuxing with Opus/AAC preservation into clean MP4/MKV containers — no re-encoding loss.
  • Audio extraction: one-tap audio-only (Opus default, plus FLAC lossless and compact presets) with 7 built-in presets and unlimited custom ones — v0.0.5 fixes Audio+Opus preset showing Video+4K.
  • Description & thumbnails (v0.0.5): optional description and thumbnail embedding with Format Picker toggles (session-persistent).
  • File naming hierarchy (v0.0.5): predefined + custom name field — template / profile / custom name unified into one picker.
  • Subtitles: download plus auto-generated subs in your languages, embedded right into the file.
  • SponsorBlock: mark or cut sponsor/intro/outro segments automatically.
  • Thumbnails, tags & chapters: cover art embedded, metadata and chapters written, optional chapter splitting.
  • Site profiles: one-tap recipes — YouTube 1080p / 4K, Podcast Audio, Lossless FLAC, Opus Compact, Twitter/X — tunable in the Profile Editor.
  • Presets: 7 built-in plus unlimited custom presets bundling format, container, and output template.
  • Output templates: default "uploader - title" naming, fully customizable (Settings → Templates).
Set and forget

Automation & upkeep

Tell Grablytic what to watch and when to work — it handles the night shift on its own.

  • Scheduling: gate the queue to time windows and weekdays — e.g. download only overnight on Wi-Fi (Settings → Schedule).
  • Observed sources: background watchlists poll your channels (feed first, extractor fallback), deduplicate seen uploads, and auto-queue new videos.
  • Settings search (v0.0.5): filter settings instantly — category list collapses to matching sub-menus.
  • Adaptive logo (v0.0.5): light/dark logo variants follow system theme (Bricolage Grotesque / Figtree headings) — launcher icons now theme-aware.
  • Download archive: never fetch the same item twice — optional per-folder archives for series and channels.
  • Update channels: stable, nightly, or master engine tracks in Settings → Updates. On desktop the engine updates silently with integrity checks; on Android engine binaries ride app updates.
It just works

Access & sign-in challenges

Platform countermeasures are handled for you — no terminal, no scripts.

  • In-app cookie login: a built-in WebView signs you in and exports cookies for age-gated or member content — stored app-private, opt-in only. v0.0.5 auto-detects pasted cookies (Netscape 7-field / JSON / Cookie: header / Base64) and validates domain — yt-dlp only reads Netscape.
  • Native notifications (v0.0.5): in-app white-stripe bottom notification removed — success/error now uses native device notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS gated).
  • Share playback + direct download (v0.0.5): links shared from YouTube/browser now show a lazy-loaded preview — tap Play or Download directly from the share sheet.
  • Automatic challenge solving: the bundled JS runtime (Deno → Node → QuickJS) resolves YouTube signature and proof-of-origin challenges with zero setup.
  • Multi-client extraction with anonymous-first privacy: tries no-auth before ever touching your cookies.
  • Share from anywhere: Android share sheet sends links straight into Grablytic — a choice sheet confirms quality first, with an optional auto-start that skips it.
  • Stays alive in the background: a foreground keep-alive service with a progress notification survives screen lock on Android (exempt the app from battery optimization for best results).
  • Curious what yt-dlp, Deno, and QuickJS actually do? The FAQ explains the whole engine in plain language.
When things go wrong

Reliability & diagnostics

Failures arrive classified with a suggested fix — not a stack trace.

  • Typed error cards: geo-blocks, rate limits, and auth failures each explain the cause and suggest the fix (VPN, proxy, cookies).
  • Private crash reporting: crashes write to local storage offline. Next launch offers a reviewable GitHub issue draft with automatic scrubbing for tokens and cookies.
  • Per-download logs: every item keeps its own live and post-completion log view.
  • Recursive resume: interrupted partial downloads are discovered across subfolders in both download roots.
  • Engine health at a glance: Settings → Diagnostics & Logs shows FFmpeg, runtime, and yt-dlp status plus a live, filterable log stream.
  • Update channels: stable, nightly, or master — check for engine updates without touching the app.

Something misbehaving? Troubleshoot it · Missing something? Request it on GitHub.