Drifty CLI Overview

Introduction

The Drifty Command Line Interface (CLI) lets you download files quickly without using a graphical interface. It’s perfect for:

Downloading files from scripts or terminal
Automating download tasks
Working on servers or systems without a GUI
Power users who prefer keyboard commands

This guide covers all available commands with examples to help you get started.

Throughout this documentation, we use drifty as the command name. If you’ve renamed your executable or are using a different path, replace drifty with your actual command.

Quick Reference

Command	Short Form	Description
`--help`	`-h`	Show help information
`--version`	`-v`	Show version information
`--batch <file>`	`-b <file>`	Download multiple files from a YAML file
`--add <URL>...`		Add URLs to download queue
`--list`		Show URLs in download queue
`--remove <index>...`		Remove URLs from download queue
`--get`		Download all URLs in queue
`--location <path>`	`-l <path>`	Set download location
`--name <filename>`	`-n <filename>`	Set custom filename
`--update`	`-u`	Check for updates

Drifty CLI Help Screen

Commands

Drifty CLI supports the following commands:

Help

Command: --help or -h

Description: Display the help message with all the available commands and options.

Usage:


drifty --help

Version

Command: --version or -v

Description: Display the version of Drifty CLI along with its components.

Usage:


drifty --version

Batch Download

Command: --batch <file> or -b <file>

Description: Download multiple files without the need to specify the URL each time. You need to create an YAML file with the list of URLs you want to download. You can also specify the directory and file name for each URL. The YAML file should have the following format:

sample.yaml


links: ["<URL1>", "<URL2>", "<URL3>", ...]
# Optional: Specify the directory and file name for each URL
fileNames: ["<FileName1>", "<FileName2>", "<FileName3>", ...]
directory: ["<SameDirectoryForAll>"]
directories: ["<Directory1>", "<Directory2>", "<Directory3>", ...]

links (Required): List of URLs to download.
fileNames (Optional): List of file names to save the downloaded files. The order should match the order of URLs. If not specified, the file name will be automatically detected from the URL.
directory or directories (Optional): Specify the directory where the files will be saved. Use directory to save all files in the same directory. Use directories to save each file in the corresponding directory specified in the order of URLs. By default, files are saved in the last used directory or the default download directory (user_home/Downloads) if not specified.

Example Configuration:

batch.yaml


links:
  [
    "https://download.oracle.com/java/21/latest/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBy1zgt0XPc",
  ]
fileNames: ["jdk-21.tar.gz", "What is GitHub?.mp4"]
directories: ["/home/user/Downloads", "/home/user/Videos"]

Usage:


drifty --batch batch.yaml

Add links to Queue

Command: --add <URL1> <URL2> ...

Description: Add one or more URLs to the download queue. The URLs will be downloaded sequentially.

Usage:


drifty --add "https://download.oracle.com/java/21/latest/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBy1zgt0XPc"

List links in Queue

Command: --list

Description: List all the URLs in the download queue.

Usage:


drifty --list

Remove links from Queue

Command: --remove <index1> <index2> ... or --remove all

Description: Remove one or more URLs from the download queue. You can specify the index of the URLs to remove, or use all to clear the entire queue.

Usage:


drifty --remove 1 3

Download from Queue

Command: --get

Description: Start downloading the URLs in the download queue. The URLs will be downloaded sequentially.

Usage:


drifty --get

Destination Download Folder

This command is not a standalone command. It must be used with the URL of the file you want to download. You can also use the --name command in conjunction with this command.

Command: --location <path> or -l <path>

Description: Specify a custom download location for the files. If not specified, you will be prompted to choose the download location each time you download a file (Default download location, Last-used directory, or Custom directory).

Usage:


drifty https://download.oracle.com/java/21/latest/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz --location /home/user/Downloads

File Name

This command is not a standalone command. It must be used with the URL of the file you want to download. You can also use the --location command in conjunction with this command.

Command: --name <filename> or -n <filename>

Description: Specify a custom file name, including the extension if applicable. If not provided, the file name will be automatically detected from the URL.

Usage:


drifty https://download.oracle.com/java/21/latest/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz --name jdk-21.tar.gz