janey-cli

janex

janex any video. paste. janex. done.

Download videos from YouTube, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and 1,800+ other sites — right from your terminal. Paste a url, pick a resolution (or audio-only mp3), done. No popups, no fake download buttons, no sketchy redirects.

Install

npm install -g janedev

Or try it without installing anything:

npx janedev

Requires Node 18+. Everything else (yt-dlp, ffmpeg) is fetched or bundled automatically.

Usage

$ janedev https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ    # straight to the format picker
$ janedev                                 # prompts for a url
$ janedev --theme light                   # force the light palette

janex takes over the terminal (full-screen, centered — and restores your scrollback on exit). Pick a format with ↑/↓ (or j/k, or number keys) and hit enter. esc goes back, ^c quits. Files are saved to ~/Downloads, and the file path is printed to your terminal when you're done.

Tip: paste a url with Ctrl+V (or right-click on Windows Terminal). If the url is already in your clipboard, press Tab to auto-fill it.

The default auto theme uses your terminal's own foreground and background, so it follows light and dark terminal themes without guessing. Press ^t or click the theme control in the footer to cycle through auto, light, and dark for the current session. Use --theme auto, --theme light, or --theme dark to choose the starting theme for one launch.

How it works

• Powered by yt-dlp. On first run, janex downloads the standalone yt-dlp binary to ~/.janex/bin — no Python required. If you already have yt-dlp installed, it uses yours.
• ffmpeg (needed for merging high-res streams and mp3 extraction) is found on your PATH, with ffmpeg-static as a bundled fallback.
• The UI is Ink — React for the terminal.

Development

npm install
npm run build        # bundle to dist/ with tsup
npm run dev          # rebuild on change
node dist/cli.js <url>
npm run typecheck

To try it as a global command without publishing: npm link, then run janex anywhere.

Roadmap

• --best / --mp3 flags to skip the picker (scriptable mode)
• -o <dir> to choose the output folder
• Playlist / thread-with-multiple-videos support
• Clipboard detection: launch bare and auto-suggest the url you copied
• Self-update for the bundled yt-dlp binary (yt-dlp -U)
• Publish to npm (npm i -g janedev / npx janedev)
• curl janex.sh | sh installer

A note on fair use

janex is a personal-archiving tool. Downloading content may violate a platform's terms of service — only download what you have the right to keep, and be excellent to creators.

License

MIT