cobalt is your go-to place for downloads from social and media platforms. zero ads, trackers, or other creepy bullshit. simply paste a share link and you're ready to rock!
please note that questions and issues may take a while to respond to, there's only one person managing everything.
privacy policy
^
cobalt's privacy policy is simple: no data about you is ever collected or stored. zero, zilch, nada, nothing. what you download is your business, not mine.
some non-backtraceable data does get temporarily stored when requested download requires live render. it's necessary for that feature to function.
in that case, salted sha256 hash of your ip address and information about requested stream are temporarily stored in server's RAM for 2 minutes. after 2 minutes all previously stored information is permanently removed. hash of your ip address is used for limiting stream access only to you. no one (even me) has access to this data, because official cobalt codebase doesn't provide a way to read it outside of processing functions in the first place.
you can check cobalt's github repo yourself and see that everything is as stated.
what's new?
current version & commit
6.0: better reliability, new infrastructure, pinterest support, and way more!
hey! long time no see, hopefully over 40 changes will make up for it :)
cobalt now has an official community discord server. you can go there for news, support, or just to chat. go check it out!
tl;dr • new infra, new hosting structure, new main instance api url. developers, get it here. • added support for pinterest, vine archive, tumblr audio, youtube vr videos. • better web app performance and look. • better stability thanks to load balancing. • (hopefully) no more random video/audio download drops.
service improvements: • added support for pinterest videos and stories (pr by @Snazzah). • added support for tumblr audio. sorry, tumblr. • added support for youtube vr videos. please note that they're in youtube's proprietary ratio. • added support for vine archive. • added support for ancient vk videos in 240p. • fixed an issue related to muted video downloads from tumblr. • moved to twitter v2 api. • soundcloud share links are now processed without errors.
ui improvements: • lazy image loading. should significantly speed up the page load. • fixed checkbox width on mobile devices. • addition of a temporary urgent notice. • added hover border to all buttons. • less annoying donation button highlight. • more consistent color scheme. • added link to a discord server into about popup. • remember celebratory emoji changes? they've been fixed, and are now dynamically loaded! • changelog history now lets you try to load it again if first attempt failed for whatever reason. • padding (everywhere) has been slightly reduced to fit in more content and be consistent across ui. • added more info to the "how to save" popup for ios devices. • crypto wallet press-to-copy buttons now look like buttons. • improved ui layout for smallest screens (iphone 5, 5s, se, etc). • removed partial translations for sake of clarity and consistency.
internal improvements: • separated web and api servers. they're now completely independent and therefore more stress-resistant. • added a dedicated script for building the web app if you don't want to reload the frontend server. • web app building improvements. • async localization preloading. • consistent server start time reporting. • dynamic stream and ip hashing salt generation.
infrastructure improvements: • load balancing: your api requests are now sent to the least busy server. yes, there are now several of them with more to come in the future. • when possible, server in closest region is used instead of a far-away one. this should help with download speeds. • currently there are servers in two locations: netherlands and kazakhstan. i will let you know when (and if) i manage to get an american one.
updates for developers and instance hosters: • server info api endpoint: you can now check up on the api server of choice. it reports all the basic info you may need. check the api docs for more info. • api names: each and every api instance should have a distinctive name. this will be useful in the future :) • added docker compose sample config. • updated and more granular setup script. • better api scalability and faster server start up thanks to web and api separation. • added ability to specify ffmpeg threads. simply add ffmpegThreads to your environment variables!
i'm still in awe from how popular cobalt has become. there are now over 200k of unique users monthly, and that number only keeps growing. i even had to come up with something to accommodate for larger traffic, it's absolutely insane.
cobalt does not (and will never) serve ads or sell your data, therefore it's completely free to use. but turns out developing and keeping up a web service used by over 200,000 people is not that easy.
if you ever found cobalt useful and want to help continue its development and support, or simply want to thank the developer, consider chipping in! every cent helps and is VERY appreciated :D
currently, i have big (scaling) plans, and i need your help. cobalt's usage is growing daily, so i need to make up for it. donations are more appreciated than ever.
i am yet to earn anything from cobalt, everything goes back to users, so you're essentially helping everyone.
if selected quality isn't available, closest one is used instead.
tiktok & douyin
youtube codec
h264: generally better player support, but quality tops out at 1080p. av1: low player support, but supports 8k & HDR. vp9: usually highest bitrate, preserves most detail. supports 4k & HDR.
pick h264 if you want best editor/player/social media compatibility.
vimeo downloads type
progressive: direct file link to vimeo's cdn. max quality is 1080p. dash: video and audio are merged by cobalt into one file. max quality is 4k.
pick "progressive" if you want best editor/player/social media compatibility. if progressive download isn't available, dash is used instead.
format
when "best" format is selected, you get audio the way it is on service's side. it's not re-encoded. everything else will be re-encoded.
removes audio from video downloads when possible.
youtube audio track
defines which audio track will be used. if dubbed track isn't available, original video language is used instead.
original: original video language is used. auto: default browser (and cobalt) language is used.
tiktok & douyin
downloads original sound used in the video without any additional changes by the post's author.