Best IDM for Mac in 2024

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Updated on: September 17, 2024
Time to read: 13 minutes
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Internet Download Manager (IDM) is a Windows application. IDM downloads files directly via links, like a browser. It is able to pause, queue, and schedule downloads. The multithreading feature can even speed them up in some cases. We know several apps that can be a Mac IDM alternative. They include many of the same features. Interested in a good download manager for Mac? Go ahead and check out our list.

Table of Contents

Internet Download Manager for Mac - Folx

Folx is an Internet Download Manager alternative for Mac that manages both direct downloads and torrents. It allows users to control the download process with speed limits, queuing, scheduling, and pausing. These tools can prevent downloads from taking up all your bandwidth. If you have a lot of files, the tagging system will help categorize and find them. Download destinations and other options can be specified separately for each tag.

Folx is among IDM Mac alternatives.

Folx can download files through multiple connections at the same time. That can often speed them up. The amount of connections can be changed manually. Despite all these features, the UI manages to be compact and intuitive. The app can capture download links directly from the browser as well. Folx feels good to use, and there’s a free version available.

There are Two Variants of Using Folx

There are 2 editions of Folx you can get – free and PRO. The PRO version has several advantages. A detailed comparison of their features can be found in the table below.

Free Version PRO Version

One Download at a Time

Run or pause a single download without speed limits.

Multithreading

Up to 20 downloads at once. Useful if you’re getting throttled!

Manual Management

Folx provides an option to adjust download speed and make room for your browser and other network apps.

Smart Speed Control

Folx PRO can change your speed automatically, depending on your Internet usage.

Control Downloads in Real Time

Add and sort downloads, whether it’s an HTML address or a torrent magnet link.

Schedule Downloads

Delay your downloads to start them at the right time.

Use Links and Magnets from Anywhere

It doesn’t matter which platform you choose – Folx can handle them all!

Accounts and Passwords

Store your login info to access password-protected websites.

Select Files and Proxies for Torrents

Folx supports partial downloads – leave out the files you don’t need. You can even choose a proxy server.

Find Torrents in the App

When you want to start a torrent, Folx PRO is with you every step of the way. It’ll even help you search!

Tag Your Downloads

Tags let you categorize and find downloads easier.

Use the Tags for Apple Music

Folx PRO can automatically upload downloaded files to Apple Music, and it will utilize your tags to organize them.

Pros

  • Works for any type of download, including Peer2Peer
  • Allows a lot of control over downloads
  • Runs natively on Mac, fast and stable.

Cons

  • Exclusive to macOS
  • Full functionality only available in Folx PRO.

Supported OS: macOS

Pricing: free, PRO Version prices start at $19.95

User rating: 4.2/5 on CNET

Conclusion: Folx is the best alternative to IDM for macOS. If you can afford Folx PRO, go for it. But even the free version is great – you won’t lose anything by trying it. Test it on several downloads, and you’ll see what we mean. It’s smooth, quick, and there’s a lot to configure.

Users situation:
Basically, IDM is the absolute best download manager for Windows bar none. It can download videos from literally anywhere, and most importantly it can also "grab" videos just by you playing it. Is there anything similar for Mac?
— MacRumors Forums

Alternatives to IDM on Mac

There’s plenty to take into account when you consider which IDM download for Mac alternative to use. An obvious question is whether or not you have to pay for the program. Some Mac IDM alternatives require payment if you want to get the most out of them. Another question is whether or not your browser of choice is supported by a certain download manager. It’s also worth thinking about ease of use.

Some programs provide the basics and are easy to understand. Others may offer more complicated tools, which might not be exactly what you’re looking for. You should also consider the speed at which a program downloads – obviously, you’ll want downloads to run as quickly as possible.

Free Download Manager

Free Download Manager is a torrent and download management utility with queueing, speed adjustment, and categorization. As an IDM alternative for Mac, FDM has nearly the same feature set. The tag system is particularly useful for separating torrents from ordinary downloads. There’s a special feature that can potentially speed up your downloads by breaking them up and loading the fragments at the same time. But this technique is very niche and will only matter if the speed is limited by the file host, and not by your bandwidth.

FDM can be integrated with the browser of your choice, in which case it will handle downloads instead of the browser’s built-in download manager.

FDM is a free app with set useful features.

Pros

  • Fully free
  • Convenient tag system
  • Handles torrents
  • Can be embedded in your browser.

Cons

  • Lacks scheduling
  • Limited as a torrent manager.

Latest version of macOS is supported.

Supported OS: macOS, Windows, Linux, Android

Price: free

User rating: 3.2/5 on Trustpilot

Conclusion: FDM is quite valuable for a free app, and it easily competes with shareware or paid solutions. The tag system is something we wish we’d see in the other entries – it’s just that innovative. Otherwise, it’s an ordinary, decent tool.

Neat Download Manager

Neat Download Manager is another IDM alternative for Mac. It is lightweight and offers a simple to use interface for its clients, but don’t be fooled, because this software packs a punch.

Neat Download Manager is a lightweight app that offers browser extensions.

Pros

  • Neat DM uses a dynamic segmentation algorithm that allows it to accelerate your downloads significantly
  • Offers browser extensions for downloading audio and video content from a wide variety of websites.

Cons

  • Relatively new software, so bugs are not uncommon
  • Limited capabilities when it comes to organizing your files.

Neat Download Manager works as an Internet download manager macOS latest version.

Supported OS: macOS

Price: free

User rating: 4.1/5 on Softpedia

Conclusion: There’s quite a lot on offer here, and this isn’t a bad download manager. It provides consistently good speeds for downloading, which is mainly thanks to the algorithm it uses. You can also use it on a wide range of websites thanks to extensions.

However, it’s a new program so there are still some issues that need to be ironed out in future updates. It’s also not ideal when it comes to organising files, and falls short of what we’ve seen in many of the other programs we’ve reviewed.

Progressive Downloader

Progressive Downloader can do some unique things, such as restoring interrupted downloads, or searching for mirrors for a download you’ve added. These features make it a great IDM Mac substitute. This is somewhat undermined by the shaky privacy policy, which states that PD will “transfer the data, including Personal Data, to Russian Federation and process it there”. If you’re willing to take the risk, it’s a fine tool.

Progressive Downloader is free IDM alternative for Mac with some unique features.

Pros

  • Free to use
  • Browser integration and automation
  • Supports many different web protocols, including FTP and SFTP.

Cons

  • Only 3 parallel threads
  • Terrible privacy policy
  • Unwieldy interface.

Progressive Downloader supports latest version of macOS.

Supported OS: macOS

Price: free

User rating: 4.4/5 on MacUpdate

Conclusion: Progressive Downloader is a massive success when it comes to free software, but a failure in regards to privacy. An admirable feature set will tempt you to use it nonetheless. And it’s worth noting that the app is still being developed – more improvements can be expected in the future.

iGetter

iGetter is commonly known as the most popular IDM on macOS. Its popularity is primarily due to the fact that it is completely free and has been around for a while.

One of the most popular IDM alternative for macOS, but does not currently work on latest version of macOS.

Pros

  • It’s completely free and fully customizable
  • Also offers easy integration with multiple Internet browsers and accelerated downloading and scheduling.

Cons

  • iGetter does not generally support updated versions of the Chrome Internet browser
  • User interface is dated and difficult to navigate.

iGetter does not currently work as an IDM for macOS latest version.

Supported OS: macOS

Price: free, full featured version is $18.45

User rating: 3.6/5 on CNET

Conclusion: For many people this is the go-to Mac download manager, mainly because it’s free. While that is definitely a major plus, it does however lack the usability that has defined some of the best managers that we’ve looked at.

It supports a number of different browsers, though it does encounter some difficulties with the latest versions of Chrome. A poor interface is the main issue, and this download manager could be far more easy to use than it is.

JDownloader

JDownloader is another internet download manager for Mac. It is a free open-source app that allows downloading from websites, social media platforms, and file hosting sites. The app offers multi-parallel download, CAPTCHA recognition, batch downloading and can extract downloaded archives automatically.

On top of that, Jdownloader supports Click’n’Load. That means it crawls all links and then finds downloadable content based on those links. JDownloader compatible with multiple platforms.

JDownloader is free open-source Internet download manager for Mac.

Pros

  • Fills in CAPTCHA forms for you
  • Compatible with multiple operating systems
  • Has scheduling options.

Cons

  • Sometimes is quite slow
  • The installation file may contain malware.

This is a Java-based app. Platform support is dependent on JDK or JRE. Currently, complete support for M1/M2 and latest version of macOS is available only through the testing version of JDK16.

Supported OS: Windows, Linux, macOS

Price: free

User rating: 3.1/5 on Trustpilot

Conclusion: Since JDownloader is open-source, you can alter the program by re-writing the source code. However, this is only attractive to those familiar with coding. The remote access option is especially noteworthy. JDownloader has a lot of useful features and is cross platform. But it is worth drawing your attention to the fact that the app may run slightly slower than other IDM for Mac alternatives due to its Java usage.

Persepolis Download Manager

Continuing our list of IDM Mac alternatives, we would like to mention Persepolis Download Manager. It is a cross-platform download manager that allows saving videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and other services.

It was created as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Aria2. Being an open-source, Persepolis is compatible with GNU/Linux Distributions, macOS and Windows. Using manager you can schedule downloads, sort the list of your downloads, and benefit from multi segment downloading.

Persepolis Download Manager is a cross-platform download manager that allows saving videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and other services.

Pros

  • Persepolis is reported to be cross-platform
  • You can make adjustments to the code since the app is an open-source
  • Supports multi-segment downloading.

Cons

  • May be vulnerable to malware as it can only be downloaded from GitHub website.

Persepolis hasn’t been updated recently, with the last update dating back to 2019. It’s likely to cause issues with latest version of macOS and does not support M1/M2.

Supported OS: Windows, Linux, macOS

Price: free

User rating: 3.7/5 on Softpedia

Conclusion: Persepolis can’t be attributed to regular downloaders. It is a GUI for Aria2 – a cross-platform, lightweight open-source command line utility that allows you to download files from multiple sources and protocols. So, if you are not proficient in software development, you will probably find it difficult to use.

Leech

Essentially, Leech does the same things as IDM. It queues up downloads, allows users to pause and continues, and controls download speed. It has some neat tricks up its sleeve, such as multi-threaded downloading and queueing. Leech, however, is not a free app. Inexpensive, but not free. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the price tag.

Leech

Pros

  • Updated to the latest macOS
  • Speeds up downloads with concurrent threads.

Cons

  • Paid app
  • No way to organize the downloads.

Supported OS: macOS

Price: free, the license is $5.99.

User rating: 3.7/5 on MacUpdate

Download Manager Advantages

Every browser has a simple built-in download manager. But the standalone apps are often more advanced and offer more control. For example, the destination can be changed individually for each file. In regards to large downloads, browsers often have problems continuing them after they were stopped, but a manager does not. Some downloads are bandwidth-intense, and that’s why speed controls help a lot. And, of course, there’s sorting and tagging, which help with large file collections. These are some of the obvious benefits, but there are a lot more that will become apparent as you use the app.

What is IDM in Windows World?

IDM is a multifunctional download manager, developed by Tonec, Inc. It features download speed acceleration, download resume, download scheduling, and the list goes on. IDM downloader is compatible with the Windows operating system. But still, there are ways to get around the compatibility issue and run Internet Download Manager on Mac.

nternet Download Manager is compatible with Windows operating system.

How to Launch Windows IDM on Mac

To run IDM downloader on Mac, you can try one of the below solutions.

Start Windows along with macOS

If you don’t want to reboot your Mac every time you need to switch to macOS, you can use Parallels and virtualize your Windows environment. This software makes it easy to run Windows inside your Mac. It is worth noting that the solution is resource intensive, so the whole system may freeze and slow down when running IDM tool on macOS.

Top Apps Alternative to IDM for Mac

Features Folx PRO Free Download Manager Neat Download Manager Progressive Downloader iGetter JDownloader Persepolis Download Manager
Multithreading
Download Scheduling
Apple Music Integration (through Automator)  
Speed Control
Bandwidth Optimization
Proxy Support
Browser Integration
Password Management
Torrent Client
Auto-continuation
macOS 10.15+
Price $19.95 free free freeware $25 free free

Conclusion

As you can see, there are some good options for an IDM alternative for Mac. Our favorite is Folx, since it’s very close to Internet Download Manager in terms of functionality, well-designed, and can be used for free. Whatever you choose, don’t forget to explore all the features of your download manager. They can be surprisingly useful.

Frequently Asked Questions

Internet Download Manager (IDM) is one of the most popular and best download managers for Windows. It provides something you won’t find in browsers – speed control, pausing, a priority system, and even scheduling. But Internet Download Manager is not unique by any means. There are plenty of Mac apps that do the same thing.

Although IDM is not available for Mac, there are several solutions to launch it on your Mac. You can run Windows on Mac, start Windows alongside macOS, or transform Windows apps into Mac apps. However, these methods can be troublesome, so we recommend finding an IDM alternative to Macs instead of trying to run IDM on Mac.

Unfortunately, the current version of IDM is not compatible with iOS devices.