# What changed in gdown

> 65 changes in gdown 5 to 6 from its official release notes, upgrade guides and advisories: 19 breaking, 3 security, 11 new APIs and options. Each one cited. Sources checked 2026-11-13. HTML: https://unstale.sh/pypi/gdown/

To see which of these apply to a repository, run `npx @unstale/cli init` in it.

## gdown 6

### Breaking changes

- importlib is no longer exported from the gdown package because it was listed in __all__ by accident. (6.4.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.4.0)
- Incomplete response bodies are rejected instead of being saved as completed downloads. (6.1.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.1)
- Removes assert_md5sum(); use hashlib for checksum verification. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes the md5 parameter; use the hash parameter instead, such as hash="md5:abc123". (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- download() raises DownloadError or its subclass FileURLRetrievalError on failure instead of returning None. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- download_folder() raises DownloadError or its subclass FileURLRetrievalError on failure instead of returning None. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes the fuzzy parameter; gdown now extracts the file ID from any Google Drive URL format without it. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Validates archive members stay within the target directory, preventing path traversal writes outside the extraction path. (5.2.2, 6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0), [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.2), [security advisory](https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-76HW-P97H-883F)
- Removes FolderContentsMaximumLimitError because folder downloads now use an endpoint with no file count limit. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes the --fuzzy CLI flag; pass Google Drive URLs directly. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes the --id CLI flag; use gdown.parse_url() for URL parsing. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes the --remaining-ok flag; folder downloads no longer need to proceed with a partial download due to the 50-file limit. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Removes md5sum(); use hashlib for checksum verification. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Returns None instead of False for non-Google-Drive URLs. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- gdown now requires Python 3.10 or later; Python 3.8 and 3.9 are no longer supported. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)

### Security

- The cookies file is written owner-only and keeps session cookies. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)

### New APIs and options

- Optional cancellation events for download() and cached_download() interrupt stalled response reads and download waits without shortening network timeouts, raising DownloadCancelled while preserving partial-file cleanup. (6.4.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.4.0)
- Adds opt-in automatic recovery of interrupted file and folder downloads, with bounded backoff and validated byte-range resume; --continue still controls reuse of earlier downloads. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Adds an installation extra for importing Chromium cookies from GNOME Keyring. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Adds --timeout SECONDS to prevent a stalled server from blocking forever. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Adds opt-in automatic recovery of interrupted file and folder downloads, with bounded backoff and validated byte-range resume. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Adds a requests-style timeout parameter to download(), download_folder(), and cached_download() so a stalled server no longer blocks forever. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Selects a cookies file other than `~/.cache/gdown/cookies.txt`. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Downloads using the signed-in Google account by reading cookies directly from a local browser. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Adds a parameter that resolves the target filename and ID without fetching the file, returning a GoogleDriveFileToDownload. (6.1.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.0)
- Lists file or folder contents as a JSON array of url and path entries on stdout instead of downloading; paths use POSIX separators, and the flag cannot be combined with -O/--output. (6.1.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.0)
- Adds a progress parameter to download() for hooking into download progress. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)

### Behavior and default changes

- Staging directories are named after their file and hidden, making leftovers from killed downloads recognizable. (6.5.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.5.0)
- Verifies hash while streaming instead of reading the finished file back from disk. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Downloads continue after individual files fail, and all failures are reported together. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Folder URLs are detected automatically; `--folder` is needed only for ambiguous bare IDs. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Prints a one-time beta warning to stderr when --json is used; --quiet suppresses the warning. (6.1.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.0)
- Folder downloads support more than 50 files using the embeddedfolderview endpoint. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)

### Tooling

- Adds a py.typed marker for PEP 561 support. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)

### Fixes and other changes

- Progress totals are reported as unknown for compressed or chunked HTTP responses instead of comparing decoded bytes against Content-Length. (6.5.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.5.1)
- Cached downloads are published atomically when the cache and destination are on different filesystems. (6.5.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.5.0)
- A download resumes only from its own partial file, avoiding reuse of a partial file for a longer filename with the same prefix. (6.5.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.5.0)
- Sanitizes Windows-invalid file and folder names when downloading from Google Drive. (6.4.2) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.4.2)
- Supports Google Drive file URLs ending in /preview or without a /view or /edit suffix. (6.4.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.4.1)
- An invalid --speed value now reports accepted units instead of an internal function name. (6.4.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.4.0)
- Reports a hit --timeout as a timeout instead of asking to file an issue. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Propagates progress callback exceptions unchanged instead of misreporting chunked-encoding errors as incomplete downloads. (6.3.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.3.0)
- Staging directories are removed after success or interruption, and the cache is created on demand instead of during import. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Sessions and streamed responses are closed on early exits, failures, and response replacement, including single-file Listing and resumed downloads. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Export extensions are preserved for dotted Google-native filenames. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Folder JSON export paths are fixed. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- A browser cookie extraction error no longer replaces working session cookies with invalid decrypted values. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- An explicitly supplied user agent is honored for file downloads within folders, while existing default user agents are retained. (6.2.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.2.0)
- Exceptions during file or folder downloads no longer leave HTTP sessions, progress bars, or output files behind. (6.1.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.1)
- Archive member paths returned by extractall use native path separators consistently for ZIP and tar results. (6.1.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.1.1)
- Handles a corrupted cookies file instead of crashing. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Sanitizes path separators in filenames on all platforms. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Detects Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides via URL patterns instead of page title, fixing downloads on non-English Google accounts. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Appends the correct extension for Google exports in folder downloads. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)
- Fixes output directory detection and filename handling on Windows. (6.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v6.0.0)

## gdown 5

### Breaking changes

- Rejects symlinks, hardlinks, and special files in tar archives. (5.2.2) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.2)
- Cookies are saved using MozillaCookieJar instead of JSON. (5.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.0.0)
- Python 2 support is dropped. (5.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.0.0)
- Log messages are printed to stderr instead of stdout. (5.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.0.0)

### Security

- Sanitizes filenames from HTTP responses and URLs to prevent path traversal through /, \, .., and null bytes. (5.2.2) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.2)
- Uses Python 3.12+ filter="data" for tar extraction when available. (5.2.2) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.2)

### Behavior and default changes

- The message printed by assert_md5sum is simplified. (5.0.0) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.0.0)

### Fixes and other changes

- Sanitizes the root folder name before building directory paths. (5.2.2) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.2)
- Verifies the file hash before moving it to the final location, preventing corrupted files from being left there if verification fails. (5.2.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.1)
- Tracks downloaded bytes independently from the progress bar for speed limiting, avoiding unnecessary sleep when resuming downloads. (5.2.1) — [release notes](https://github.com/wkentaro/gdown/releases/tag/v5.2.1)