Cross-platform desktop app to download, transcribe, and summarize media from ~1800 yt-dlp–supported platforms. Local-first, open-source, no servers — your media and API keys never leave your machine.
⬇ Download Sift for Windows — always the latest build.
Or browse all releases (installer is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen shows an "unknown publisher" prompt — choose More info → Run anyway). The app updates itself after that.
- Download any yt-dlp-supported video/audio, with a queue and per-format options.
- Transcribe from captions or locally with whisper.cpp — no cloud, works offline.
- Summarize with your own AI key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, or a custom endpoint). Keys are stored encrypted at rest.
- Library with full-text search, tags, and a synced, click-to-seek in-app player.
- Channels & subscriptions — browse a channel's videos, track subscriptions, batch-download.
- Plex export — write
.m3uplaylists for your filtered library.
Requires Node 20+ and pnpm 9+.
pnpm install
pnpm dev # launch the desktop app in dev
pnpm test # unit tests (Vitest)
pnpm typecheck # strict TS across all packages
pnpm lint # ESLint
pnpm --filter @sift/desktop e2e # Playwright smoke test (build first)Build a Windows installer: pnpm --filter @sift/desktop dist.
Release notes live in UPDATES.md.