Reddsaver

Command line tool to download saved, upvoted, subreddit feed, or user-submitted media from Reddit.

Supported sources:

Source	Media types
Reddit	Images (JPG/PNG), GIFs, image galleries, videos
Imgur	Direct images, GIFVs (downloaded as mp4)
Gfycat / Redgifs	GIFs (downloaded as mp4)
Giphy	GIFs
YouTube	Videos (requires yt-dlp)

Does not support Imgur post/album links — only direct media links.

Prerequisites

ffmpeg — required to merge the separate audio and video streams that Reddit uses for hosted videos. Install from https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html or via your package manager.

yt-dlp — required only if you want to download YouTube videos linked in your saved/upvoted posts. Install from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp or via your package manager.

Installation

Release binaries

Download a pre-built binary for your platform from the releases page.

MacPorts

sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install reddsaver

Homebrew

brew tap manojkarthick/reddsaver
brew install reddsaver

Arch Linux

yay -S reddsaver

cargo

cargo install reddsaver

nix

nix-env --install reddsaver

Or via home-manager:

home.packages = [ pkgs.reddsaver ];

Build from source

Requires a current stable Rust toolchain with Cargo support for lock file version 4. If cargo build fails with a lock file version error, upgrade Rust and Cargo first.

git clone https://github.com/manojkarthick/reddsaver.git
cargo build --release
./target/release/reddsaver

Docker

mkdir -pv data/
docker run --rm \
    --volume="$PWD/data:/app/data" \
    --volume="$PWD/reddsaver.env:/app/reddsaver.env" \
    ghcr.io/manojkarthick/reddsaver:latest -d /app/data -e /app/reddsaver.env

Setup

1. Create a Reddit script application at https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps

   • Click create an app at the bottom of the page
   • Give it a name (e.g. <username>-reddsaver)
   • Choose script as the type
   • Set any redirect URL (e.g. http://localhost:8080)
   • Click create app — the string beneath the app name is your client ID; the string next to secret is your client secret

2. Create a .env file (e.g. reddsaver.env) with your credentials:

REDDSAVER_CLIENT_ID='<client_id>'
REDDSAVER_CLIENT_SECRET='<client_secret>'
REDDSAVER_USERNAME='<username>'
REDDSAVER_PASSWORD='<password>'

Important

Use single quotes for values in the env file, especially if a value contains $. Unquoted $ triggers variable substitution, and double-quoted values containing special characters can be parsed unexpectedly.

If you have 2FA enabled: REDDSAVER_PASSWORD='<password>:<2FA_TOTP_token>'

Usage

# Create a directory to save media to
mkdir -pv data/

# Verify the configuration is correct
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --show-config

# Download saved media (default)
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data

# Download upvoted media instead
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode upvoted

# Download from a subreddit's hot feed (default listing type, limit 500)
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode feed --subreddits pics

# Download top posts of the week from multiple subreddits (500 per subreddit)
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode feed --subreddits pics,aww --listing-type top --time-filter week --limit 500

# Download new posts from a subreddit
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode feed --subreddits earthporn --listing-type new

# Download a subreddit's best feed
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode feed --subreddits pics --listing-type best

# Download rising posts from a subreddit
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode feed --subreddits pics --listing-type rising

# Limit saved/upvoted downloads
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --limit 200

# Dry run — print URLs without downloading
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --dry-run

# Restrict saved/upvoted downloads to specific subreddits
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --subreddits pics,aww,videos

# Download media from a specific user's submissions
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode user --user SomeUsername

# Download a user's top posts of the month
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode user --user SomeUsername --listing-type top --time-filter month

# Download a user's newest submissions with a limit
reddsaver -e reddsaver.env -d data --mode user --user SomeUsername --listing-type new --limit 100

On subsequent runs, files that already exist in the data directory are skipped automatically.

Command line reference

Simple CLI tool to download saved media from Reddit

Usage: reddsaver [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -e, --from-env <ENV_FILE>      Set a custom .env style file with secrets [default: .env]
  -d, --data-dir <DATA_DIR>      Directory to save the media to [default: data]
  -s, --show-config              Show the current config being used
  -r, --dry-run                  Dry run and print the URLs of saved media to download
  -S, --subreddits <SUBREDDITS>  Subreddits to filter (saved/upvoted) or fetch from (feed mode)
  -m, --mode <MODE>              Operation mode [default: saved] [possible values: saved, upvoted, feed, user]
  -u, --user <USERNAME>          Reddit username to download submissions from (required for user mode)
  -t, --listing-type <TYPE>      Subreddit listing sort [default: hot] [possible values: hot, best, rising, top, new, controversial]
  -T, --time-filter <PERIOD>     Time period for top/controversial listings [default: all] [possible values: hour, day, week, month, year, all]
  -l, --limit <LIMIT>            Max posts to process per source (default: unlimited for saved/upvoted, 500 for feed/user)
  -h, --help                     Print help
  -V, --version                  Print version

Modes

Mode	Flag	Description
saved	--mode saved (default)	Download media from your saved posts
upvoted	--mode upvoted	Download media from your upvoted posts
feed	--mode feed	Download media from a subreddit's listing feed
user	--mode user --user <USERNAME>	Download media from a specific user's submissions

Feed mode options

--listing-type and --time-filter are only valid with --mode feed or --mode user. --subreddits is required in feed mode and specifies which subreddit(s) to fetch from. The --limit defaults to 500 per subreddit.

User mode options

--user is required and specifies the Reddit username whose public submissions to download. Supports the same --listing-type and --time-filter options as feed mode. The --limit defaults to 500.

Listing type	Time filter applies?	Description
hot (default)	No	Currently trending posts
best	No	Reddit's best-ranked posts for the subreddit
rising	No	Posts currently gaining traction in the subreddit
top	Yes	Highest-scoring posts in the given time period
new	No	Most recently submitted posts
controversial	Yes	Most controversial posts in the given time period

Time filter values for top and controversial: hour, day, week, month, year, all (default all). If --time-filter is passed with hot, best, rising, or new, the value is ignored.

File naming

Downloaded files are named using the format:

{subreddit}/{author}_{post_id}_{index}_{hash8}.{ext}

• author — Reddit username of the poster; files sort naturally by user in any file browser
• post_id — base-36 Reddit post ID; use it to navigate directly to the source post
• index — 0 for single media; 0, 1, … for gallery items; component_0/component_1 for Reddit videos with separate audio/video tracks
• hash8 — first 8 characters of the MD5 hash of the media URL, used as a collision guard

Example: aww/thunderbird42_abc123_0_f3a8b2c1.jpg

Utilities

parse_file.sh

Given any file downloaded by reddsaver, prints the subreddit, username, and a direct link to the source Reddit post.

./scripts/parse_file.sh data/aww/thunderbird42_abc123_0_f3a8b2c1.jpg
# Subreddit: aww
# Username:  thunderbird42
# Post link: https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/abc123/

download_top_presets.sh

Runs a common set of top downloads for a single subreddit:

• all with limit 1000
• year with limit 500
• month with limit 250
• day with limit 25

./scripts/download_top_presets.sh --env-file test.env --subreddit aww --data-dir ~/Downloads/Reddit

convert_gifs.sh

Recursively finds all .gif files in a directory and converts them to MP4 using ffmpeg. The original GIF is removed after a successful conversion. Useful for converting GIFs that were downloaded before the built-in GIF-to-MP4 conversion was added.

# Convert all GIFs in the data directory
./scripts/convert_gifs.sh data/

# Dry run — list GIFs that would be converted
./scripts/convert_gifs.sh --dry-run data/

# Run with 4 parallel ffmpeg workers
./scripts/convert_gifs.sh --jobs 4 data/

compress_gifs.sh

Recursively finds GIFs above a size threshold and compresses them in-place using gifsicle with maximum optimization (-O3). Useful if you prefer to keep GIFs as-is but want to reduce their size.

# Compress GIFs larger than 10 MB (default threshold)
./scripts/compress_gifs.sh data/

# Compress GIFs larger than 5 MB
./scripts/compress_gifs.sh --threshold 5 data/

# Dry run — list files that would be compressed
./scripts/compress_gifs.sh --dry-run data/

Download summary

At the end of each run, reddsaver prints a summary broken down by media source:

#####################################
Download Summary:
  Total supported:  467
  Total downloaded: 459
  Total skipped:    8

  Source                   | Supported | Downloaded | Skipped
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  Imgur GIF                |         8 |          8 |       0
  Imgur Image              |        48 |         48 |       0
  Reddit GIF               |        14 |         14 |       0
  Reddit Image             |       320 |        320 |       0
  Reddit Video (no audio)  |         3 |          3 |       0
  Redgifs                  |        74 |         66 |       8
#####################################

Skipped items are either already present on disk or could not be retrieved (a WARN log line is printed for each).