Downie · Help

Safari

Safari now uses native extensions - the extension is bundled as part of the Downie app. It doesn't need to be installed and cannot be uninstalled as it's part of the app itself and is discovered and listed automatically by the system. Instead of installing it from the Settings, go to Safari and select Safari > Settings… in the menu bar, select the Extensions tab and enable Downie Extension.

If you can't find the extension on the list, please move Downie application from and back to the Applications folder and reboot your computer, or try redownloading Downie from its website.

I'm not seeing the toolbar button.

Please make sure that the extension is enabled and that it's allowed to be run on all websites - all of this can be set up in Safari's Settings > Extensions. If you want to see the extension in private browsing, you need to allow it as well.

If it's enabled and you're still not seeing it, please refer to the generic extensions help article - the toolbar button might not be visible by default (this is controller by Safari), so try customizing the toolbar and see if the button appears there.

I'm seeing two extensions listed, one marked as `(New)`.

As Apple has changed the format of the Safari extension several times, Downie currently includes two extensions, one being marked as "(New)". Please disable the other browser extension and use the one marked as "(New)".

This is only available on macOS 15.4 or later; or macOS 13 and 14 with Safari v18.4 installed. Due to this new format not being available on earlier macOS versions, both versions need to be included for compatibility reasons.

As noted above, the extension is bundled as part of Downie app itself, there is no way for Downie to only list one of them and it cannot be removed. There's no good reason to remove it, unless it's enabled, nothing is running, so it's not doing anything other than being listed.

The old extension will be removed once macOS 11 and 12 support is dropped, but is left in the meantime for backward compatibility. The new extension should be more reliable in terms of discovery and usage.

If you are wondering about the versioning, the old format needed to use the same version as the app itself, the new extension is versioned separately.

Safari Options

In Settings > Browser Extensions in Downie, there's a section "Safari Extension Options" which are options available just for the Safari extension as it is the only one that runs native code:

  • Activate Downie will switch focus to Downie when you send the link.
  • [Deprecated] Show Postprocessing Options in Contextual Menu shows additional menu items in the contextual menu.
  • [Deprecated] Pass Cookies to Downie - see below.

Deprecated options will be removed along with the older extension version. The postprocessing option is no longer necessary as the new extension merges all the menu items under a single submenu, thus not flooding the menu. The cookies option will be removed as it is causing more issues than initially thought.

Sending Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of information that many sites store in the browser to maintain the login session, for example. As Downie does not share the cookies or anything else with your browser, links that require login will require you to login manually within Downie as well. Allowing Downie to let the extension send cookies from your browser allows Downie to inherit the login session in many cases.

Please note that this is:

  • an experimental feature - it's possible that there are some unforeseeable issues with this. If you run into any issues, please report them.
  • off by default.
  • only available for Safari for the time being. If it proves as a good feature, it will be migrated to other browser extensions as well.