gdlEX takes gallery‑dl, wraps it in a proper Windows interface, adds automation and a thread-safe post‑processing engine, and removes the part where you have to pretend the command line is fun to use.
🏛️ Built natively in Delphi—because I don’t want my UI to be a web page cosplaying as an app.
gdlEX wraps gallery‑dl in an ultra-lean Windows interface (using a microscopic 12MB of RAM) and adds an entire ecosystem of companion features:
- Queue Management — Full multi-URL queue automation.
- Automation Engine — Watch folders for auto-importing, daily scheduling, and smart cookie rotation.
- Thread-Safe Post‑Processing — Background filename sanitation, automatic extension swapping, and empty-folder cleanup.
- Privacy Mode — Real-time console masking that redacts URLs and file paths on the fly.
- Comic Archiving — Automatic sequential folder conversion into standard
.cbzarchives. - Integrations — Native hooks for FFmpeg, yt‑dlp fallbacks, and real-time webhook status notifications.
gdlEX is what gallery‑dl looks like after someone who actually likes native Windows apps gets involved.
gdlEX operates in two worlds:
- gallery‑dl features — the raw backend power, exposed gracefully.
- gdlEX-exclusive features — the quality‑of‑life desktop magic.
These are native gallery‑dl capabilities, presented in a way that won't make you want to throw your monitor out a window.
- Single URL execution
- Multi‑URL queue tracking
- Text file bulk input (
.txt,.lst,.url,.gdl,.csv) - URL‑only extraction (simulation testing)
- Metadata‑only raw JSON dumping
- Default gallery-dl directory hierarchies
- Original source filename preservation
- Unique ID‑only naming
- Date + filename prepending
- Username + ID structures
- Category + ID structures
- Custom string template rule engine
- Metadata filter expressions (e.g.,
width >= 1920) - Strict date range boundaries (before / after constraints)
- Sequential file range clamping
- Min/max file size throttling (in bytes)
- MIME type content filtering
- Max retry limits, request timeouts, and native rate-limiting
- Custom user-agent spoofing
- Force IPv4 or IPv6 routing
- Proxy routing configurations
- Insecure SSL certificate validation bypasses
- Static OAuth bearer tokens
- Dedicated API keys
- Automated browser cookie extraction (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi, etc.)
- Netscape-format
cookies.txtfile rotation loops
These features do not exist in gallery‑dl. This is the code that saves your sanity.
- Pure Win32 compiled assembly—no Electron, no web runtime, instant start.
- Deep system tray integration with custom task notifications.
- Close-to-tray background execution mode.
- Multi-session crash resilience and automatic job resumption.
- Live file-type count tallying directly in the UI.
- Dynamic terminal output pruning (keeps text buffer lean under massive loops).
- Active Watch Folders: Automatically ingests and processes text files dropped into monitored directories.
- Daily Scheduler: Set specific times for heavy scraping queues to fire off.
- Completion Actions: Trigger a folder opening, play a system alert sound, run a custom cleanup script, or simply do nothing and get on with your life.
- Thread-Isolated Execution: Heavy I/O processing runs on optimized background threads, keeping the UI perfectly responsive.
- Filename Sanitation: One-click removal of emojis, punctuation, symbols, and double spaces.
- String Scrubbing: Automatic truncation to custom character limits and mass substring removal.
- Extension Swapping: Corrects irregular media containers without messing with file headers (e.g.,
jpeg→jpg). - Clean Exit Architecture: Automated post-download verification, empty sub-folder pruning, and Windows-safe path sanitation.
- Live counters tracking total files processed and CBZ archives created.
- Granular success/failure error state evaluation.
- Automated end-of-run Session Receipts and execution logs written straight to output.
(The Shiny Stuff)
- Download gdlEX.
- Drop
gallery-dl.exeinto the same folder. - Stop babysitting a terminal text block.
gdlEX/
├── gdlEX.exe
└── gallery-dl.exe
- OS Support: Windows 10 or later (ugh).
- Optional Binaries: Drop
ffmpeg.exeoryt-dlp.exein the path if you want post-download conversion or advanced streaming extraction options.
Grab the latest release here:
https://github.com/Supereviil/gdlEX/releases
If gdlEX saved you time, sanity, or wrist strain:
Ko‑fi: https://ko-fi.com/superevil
Every donation goes toward more utilities, more polish, more over‑engineering, and keeping native desktop tool development alive.
gdlEX is released under the MIT License.
- gallery-dl by mikf — the powerhouse doing the heavy lifting.
- gdlEX by Superevil Enterprises — the companion app, UI, automation, and general bad attitude.