Install Aria2 as Download Manager for macOS

Aria2 is a lightweight download software with Multi-Connection support. Besides HTTP(s) and FTP, it also supports BitTorrent and Metalink.

Install Aria2

Aria2 can be easily installed with Homebrew. So make sure homebrew is installed on macOS.

$ brew install aria2

If you want aria2 to support sftp then

$ brew install aria2 --with-libssh2

Configure Aria2

Create directory for Aria2

$ mkdir ~/.aria2

Create Aria2 configuration files

$ touch ~/.aria2/aria2.conf
$ touch ~/.aria2/session.dat

Then add following content to aria2.conf. Make sure <username> is replaced by your own macOS user name.

# Basic Options
dir=/Users/<username>/Downloads
input-file=/Users/<username>/.aria2/session.dat
log=/Users/<username>/.aria2/aria2.log
save-session=/Users/<username>/.aria2/session.dat
save-session-interval=60
max-concurrent-downloads=20
check-integrity=true
continue=true

# HTTP/FTP/SFTP Options
max-connection-per-server=15
min-split-size=10M
split=15

# RPC Options
enable-rpc=true
rpc-allow-origin-all=true
rpc-listen-port=6800
rpc-save-upload-metadata=true
rpc-secret=myaria2

# Advanced Options
daemon=true
disable-ipv6=true
file-allocation=none
log-level=warn
always-resume=true

Above configuration is just mine. More options can be found here.

Set up autostart for Aria2

Here I use Homebrew services for Aria2 autostart management.

$ touch /usr/local/opt/aria2/homebrew.mxcl.aria2.plist

Then add following content to /usr/local/opt/aria2/homebrew.mxcl.aria2.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>homebrew.mxcl.aria2</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/opt/aria2/bin/aria2c</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Start Aria2

$ brew services start aria2

For Aria2 front end, I use Chrome extension YAAW, which is very friendly and UI is very clean. Also webui-aria2 is a good alternative.