Installation

Tidefetch is a single static binary with no runtime to install. One command gets you the terminal UI; add tidefetch serve later if you want the web UI.

Quick install

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://thre4dripper.github.io/tidefetch/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://thre4dripper.github.io/tidefetch/install.ps1 | iex

That is the whole install. The script detects your OS and CPU, downloads the matching binary from the latest release, verifies its SHA-256 against the published checksums, and puts it on your PATH.

Then confirm everything is wired up:

tidefetch version
tidefetch doctor

Re-run the same command to upgrade. Windows Terminal is recommended — the TUI uses truecolor and Unicode block glyphs that the legacy console host renders poorly.

The aria2 engine

Tidefetch is an interface to aria2, so the engine has to be present.

brew install aria2          # macOS
sudo apt install aria2      # Debian, Ubuntu
sudo dnf install aria2      # Fedora, RHEL
sudo pacman -S aria2        # Arch
sudo apk add aria2          # Alpine

tidefetch doctor tells you if it is missing.

Homebrew

Use this if you would rather Homebrew owned upgrades. It pulls in aria2 too.

brew install thre4dripper/tap/tidefetch
brew upgrade tidefetch
brew uninstall tidefetch

Tidefetch is not published to Winget, Scoop, Chocolatey, APT, DNF, AUR or Nix — the install script replaces all of them.

Install script options

Set environment variables before sh to change the defaults:

# Pin a version and choose the target directory.
curl -fsSL https://thre4dripper.github.io/tidefetch/install.sh \
  | TIDEFETCH_VERSION=v0.2.0 TIDEFETCH_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/bin" sh

# Never escalate, even if sudo is available.
curl -fsSL https://thre4dripper.github.io/tidefetch/install.sh | TIDEFETCH_NO_SUDO=1 sh

The Windows script accepts the same first two and installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Tidefetch.

Piping a script into a shell means trusting it, so read it first if you prefer:

curl -fsSL https://thre4dripper.github.io/tidefetch/install.sh -o install.sh
less install.sh
sh install.sh

Manual download

Archives are attached to every release for linux (amd64, arm64, armv7), darwin (amd64, arm64) and windows (amd64, arm64):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/Thre4dripper/tidefetch/releases/latest/download/tidefetch_linux_amd64.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz tidefetch
sudo install -m 0755 tidefetch /usr/local/bin/tidefetch

Uninstall

Delete the binary the installer reported, then remove ~/.config/tidefetch and ~/.local/share/tidefetch.

Containers

Docker

docker run -d \
  --name tidefetch \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 8210:8210 \
  -e TIDEFETCH_PASSWORD='replace-this-password' \
  -v tidefetch-config:/config \
  -v /srv/downloads:/downloads \
  ghcr.io/thre4dripper/tidefetch:latest

Images are multi-arch — Docker pulls the right build for your CPU automatically:

docker pull ghcr.io/thre4dripper/tidefetch:latest   # GitHub Container Registry
docker pull ijlalahmad/tidefetch:latest             # Docker Hub mirror

Pin a version for anything you care about:

docker pull ghcr.io/thre4dripper/tidefetch:0.2.0

Docker Compose

services:
  tidefetch:
    image: ghcr.io/thre4dripper/tidefetch:latest
    container_name: tidefetch
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      TIDEFETCH_PASSWORD: replace-this-password
    ports:
      - "8210:8210"
      - "6881:6881"
      - "6881:6881/udp"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./downloads:/downloads

Podman

podman run -d --name tidefetch --replace \
  -p 8210:8210 \
  -e TIDEFETCH_PASSWORD='replace-this-password' \
  -v tidefetch-config:/config:Z \
  -v /srv/downloads:/downloads:Z \
  ghcr.io/thre4dripper/tidefetch:latest

Kubernetes (Helm)

The chart is published as an OCI artifact to GitHub Container Registry:

helm install tidefetch oci://ghcr.io/thre4dripper/charts/tidefetch \
  --namespace tidefetch --create-namespace \
  --set auth.password='replace-this-password' \
  --set persistence.downloads.size=200Gi

See Kubernetes deployment for raw manifests and storage guidance.

Go toolchain

go install github.com/Thre4dripper/tidefetch/cmd/tidefetch@latest

This builds the binary only — install aria2 separately with your package manager, then run tidefetch doctor.

From source

Requires Go 1.26.1+, Node.js 20+, Make and aria2.

git clone https://github.com/Thre4dripper/tidefetch.git
cd tidefetch
make build
./tidefetch doctor

make install places the binary in $(go env GOPATH)/bin.

Useful targets:

make build      # web assets + binary
make backend    # Go only, reuses the last web build
make site       # product site
make test       # unit and integration tests
make docker     # container image

Verify a download

tidefetch doctor checks the config file, aria2 binary, RPC connectivity, download directory and data directory.

The install script already verifies checksums for you. To check a manual download, release artifacts ship a checksum manifest:

curl -fsSLO https://github.com/Thre4dripper/tidefetch/releases/latest/download/checksums.txt
sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

On macOS use shasum -a 256 -c. On Windows use Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256.

First run

tidefetch                                  # the TUI
tidefetch https://example.com/file.iso     # queue a download on launch
tidefetch serve                            # web UI on http://127.0.0.1:8210

Continue with Configuration, or jump to Homelab operations for server deployments.

Publishing new releases

Maintainers: see Publishing for the release pipeline and the one-time credentials each registry needs.