Download Leech 3.1.7 (Mac) – Download Free

Browsers tend not to offer many download management features. If you need to crawl a large number of files or very large files on a regular basis, you may need more options.

leech is one of the lightest download managers you’ll come across, but it’s pretty impressive. It lets you control multiple downloads, speed them up, limit speed if necessary, pause and resume, schedule tasks, and more.

The Basics of How Leech Works

Once the app is installed, it can be used in one of two ways. If you use Safari, you can enable the Leech extension and send downloads to the app from the context menu of direct links. If you’re using another browser, you’ll have to drag the link to the app’s window or copy and paste it there.

No matter how you add them, the URLs are sent to the queue and you can start them at any time. Multiple downloads can be started at once or consecutively, and specify how many times they should run simultaneously, or from the same host. Downloads can be paused and resumed at any time.

Increase download speed with multiple connections

Download acceleration involves splitting the download into multiple parts and fetching all of them at the same time. This can help improve overall speed if the server is rate limiting a single connection, and you can set your preferred number of concurrent connections.

However, keep in mind that many servers block such connections, so you won’t always be able to increase your download speed this way.

Limit bandwidth and schedule downloads

If you want to download something while you’re playing a game or watching a video, it’s sometimes best to throttle its speed so that it doesn’t interfere with other processes that need your bandwidth. Leech allows you to do this.

If you want to schedule downloads while you’re away, you can set a time to start all pending downloads.

In short, Leech has all the major features you would expect from a download manager, all in a very lightweight and intuitive package. It even offers a Safari extension that saves you the trouble of dragging or copying URLs.