Multi-segment speed
Each file splits into parallel streams over HTTP Range and reassembles byte-perfectly — with automatic single-stream fallback when a server can't do ranges. FTP and FTPS segment the same way, natively.
macOS Tahoe 26 · Swift 6 · No Electron
A download manager that behaves like part of macOS.
Serious multi-segment speed over HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. Video from ~1,800 sites. Resume that survives a reboot. And nothing ever phones home.
Free & open source · MIT · No account, ever
- 8×
- parallel segments
- ~1,800
- video sites recognized
- 471
- tests · 72 suites
- 0
- bytes phoned home
01 — The engine
Everything a download deserves.
One actor-based engine handles HTTP, HTTPS and FTP alike — segmenting, resuming, and verifying every transfer the same way.
Resume survives anything
True byte-range resume outlives an app relaunch and a reboot — it never re-downloads a byte. When the network drops, per-segment retry with exponential backoff and jitter pauses and picks up on its own.
Bandwidth control
Global and per-download speed caps — a GCRA throttle that holds the aggregate honestly under many connections — plus time-of-day profiles.
Queues, rules & sorting
Per-queue concurrency, a rule-based routing engine to folders and queues, duplicate detection, and auto-sorting of finished files.
Multi-source mirrors
Open a Metalink and segments spread across mirrors, failing over the moment one dies or serves corrupt bytes — then verify.
Post-processing
Native ZIP auto-extraction — Zip-Slip and bomb guarded — a Gatekeeper quarantine flag, plus notify, quit, or run a Shortcut.
02 — Only in CloakDrop
Every download leaves a receipt.
Each completed download earns a local, exportable Provenance Receipt — sources, TLS details, whole-file SHA-256, and checksum + code-signature verdicts in one trust record. Checksums verify automatically from a hash you supply or an auto-discovered sibling .sha256; .app and .dmg files get a notarization check on top. No other download manager produces one.
PROVENANCE RECEIPT
FILE ubuntu-26.04.iso
SIZE 6.52 GB
SOURCE releases.ubuntu.com
TLS TLS 1.3 ✓
SHA-256 a1b4…9f2e ✓ MATCH
SIGNATURE NOTARIZED ✓
VERDICT ✓ TRUSTED
03 — Capture
If you can see it, you can grab it.
Paste, drag, share, or browse — every road leads into the same segmented engine, and your logins come along.
A browser that grabs
A built-in WebKit browser (⇧⌘B) lists the video, audio, and files on any page — ads and beacons filtered out — and takes over downloads IDM-style the moment a page starts one. An optional ad & tracker blocker is a switch away.
~1,800 video sites
Paste a YouTube link — or any site yt-dlp can read — and CloakDrop resolves the formats and downloads with its own segmented engine. yt-dlp only reads and deciphers; it never downloads a byte.
From anywhere
Clipboard watching, drag & drop, a link-grabber that pattern-expands file[01-50].zip, a scheduler, a Share Extension, and a “Send to CloakDrop” Services item.
04 — The details
Small things, done right.
The parts you only notice because they never get in your way.
Integrity & trust
MD5 / SHA-1 / SHA-256 verified on completion, from your hash or a discovered sibling checksum.
Media grabbing
HLS and DASH streams, AES-128 decrypt, audio paired and muxed into a clean, playable file — no re-encode.
Built-in speed test
Speedometer dials for download, upload, latency, and jitter. Cloudflare or Ookla, strictly manual.
Download stats
Private lifetime totals with a playful monthly tier badge — Warming Up all the way to ISP’s Worst Nightmare.
Fully localized
Every UI string translated into 11 languages, from English and Spanish to Japanese, Arabic, and Hindi.
Menu bar & Dock
A live menu-bar extra and a Dock icon that shows overall progress at a glance, without opening the window.
05 — Privacy is the whole point
The only requests it makes are the ones you start.
No accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting. The built-in browser keeps your logins but records no history, with a one-click wipe of all site data. Downloads and settings live in a local SQLite database you can export or delete — and the App Sandbox means CloakDrop only ever touches the folders you point it at.
- No telemetry
- No analytics
- No accounts
- No crash reporting
- No phone-home
06 — Under the hood
Native to the bone.
No Electron, no web views, no third-party Swift dependencies beyond GRDB. Full light and dark, VoiceOver and full-keyboard access, a live menu-bar extra, a Dock icon that shows progress — and every string translated into 11 languages.
- LANGUAGE
- Swift 6, strict concurrency
- UI
- SwiftUI · Liquid Glass
- ENGINE
- Actor-based, one actor per transfer
- NETWORKING
- URLSession + native FTP/FTPS
- PERSISTENCE
- GRDB (SQLite) · Keychain creds
- DEPENDENCIES
- None beyond GRDB
07 — Part of Cloakyard
One suite. One design language.
Small, sharp Mac tools built on the same privacy-first principles, each doing one job well.
- CloakDrop Multi-segment download manager THIS APP
- CloakPDF Private PDF toolkit CLOAKYARD
- CloakIMG Image conversion & editing CLOAKYARD
- CloakResume Résumé builder CLOAKYARD
Explore the whole family on github.com/cloakyard.