gallery-dl

Command-line program to download image galleries and collections from several image hosting sites

gallery-dl v1.32.9 400.8K downloads/30d#6,934 on PyPI

Copyleft license GPL-2.0-only Active released 2026-08-01

What it is and what it does

gallery-dl is a command-line downloader for image galleries and collections hosted on multiple image sites. It accepts URLs, identifies the hosting site, and downloads all media in that collection to local storage. The tool supports cross-platform operation and offers extensive configuration through command-line flags and JSON configuration files, including filtering by metadata (chapter number, language, tags), custom file naming using template syntax, and authentication where required.

The package depends only on requests for HTTP operations, making installation straightforward. It includes optional support for video downloads (via yt-dlp or youtube-dl), advanced compression formats, YAML/TOML configuration parsing, and system keyring integration for stored credentials. The tool is actively maintained and supports current Python versions.

Use it for:

Download all images from a Danbooru tag search or similar image board in one command
Batch retrieve manga chapters from MangaDex with filtering by chapter range and language
Extract images from a Twitter thread or other social media gallery with authentication
Organize downloaded images using custom naming templates based on metadata like artist, date, or tags
Automate recurring downloads from multiple galleries using configuration files and scheduled runs

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

A command-line tool that downloads image galleries and collections from multiple image hosting sites by parsing URLs and extracting media with configurable naming and filtering.

Yes, if you need to download image galleries from supported hosting sites. The tool is actively maintained, has minimal dependencies, and supports current Python versions. The copyleft GPL-2.0-only license is permissive for personal use but requires attention if you plan to redistribute or embed it in proprietary software. No known security vulnerabilities.

Install

gallery-dl on PyPI

pip

pip install gallery-dl

uv

uv add gallery-dl

poetry

poetry add gallery-dl

Installing gallery-dl

Before you install

Low install friction with a single runtime dependency (requests). Active maintenance with a release 13 days ago. Supports modern Python versions (3.8 through 3.14) and runs on CPython and PyPy.

License in practice

Licensed under GPL-2.0-only (copyleft). Any derivative work or distribution must also be released under GPL-2.0-only; using this in proprietary software requires careful licensing review.

Quickstart

pip install gallery-dl
gallery-dl "https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts?tags=bonocho"

Requires Python 3.8 or later. Some features (video downloads, compression formats, browser cookies) require optional dependencies like yt-dlp, FFmpeg, brotli, or SecretStorage.

Verify before relying

Whether the package handles rate-limiting or respects site robots.txt/terms of service by default
Performance characteristics when downloading very large galleries (thousands of images)
Specific list of all supported image hosting sites beyond the reference to external documentation

Package facts

License	GPL-2.0-only (copyleft)
Python support	supports the current Python release (>=3.8)
Install friction	low — pure-Python wheel
Runtime dependencies	1 — requests
Maintenance	actively maintained — 13 days since the last release
First released	2016-11-30
Downloads	400,772/month — #6,934 on PyPI (30-day window, as of 2026-08-14)
Known vulnerabilities	none known (OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14)

Evidence: gallery_dl-1.32.9-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: image, gallery, downloader, crawler, scraper

Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableEnvironment :: ConsoleIntended Audience :: End Users/DesktopLicense :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2)Operating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3 :: OnlyProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPythonProgramming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: PyPyTopic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTPTopic :: Multimedia :: GraphicsTopic :: Utilities