Script for reliably downloading binaries (e.g. Xcode) from Apple's CDN

xcode-downloader.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

print "What is the URL of your Apple Downloads resource?\nURL:"
url = gets.strip

print "What is the ADCDownloadAuth cookie token:\nADCDownloadAuth: "
token = gets.strip

command = "aria2c --header \"Host: adcdownload.apple.com\" --header \"Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8\" --header \"Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1\" --header \"Cookie: ADCDownloadAuth=#{token}\" --header \"User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.2.14 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0 Mobile/14B72 Safari/602.1\" --header \"Accept-Language: en-us\" -x 16 -s 16 #{url} -d ~/Downloads"

exec(command)

Hi all. Can anyone help us working through this?

As of today, for Xcode 11.5 and with redesigned Apple Download pages, we keep on receiving 403.

The cookie should be correct, we tried both straight from Developer Console, as well as with a Firefox Cookie Quick Manager extension, just to be sure: they report the same value, same characters.

The download URL, as of today, looks like (taken from https://xcodereleases.com/):
https://developer.apple.com/services-account/download?path=/Developer_Tools/Xcode_11.5/Xcode_11.5.xip
Not sure if that querystring parameter messes up things (unlikely).

We tried with just http: no luck. We also tried with a forked gist by @manishpathak99: https://gist.github.com/manishpathak99/2a18fce18493f460fe80f2bd542a8560. Same result (also, the script seems the same from a quick look). We also tried to structure the URL as posted in that forked gist (https://download.developer.apple.com/Developer_Tools/foo/bar.xip), again with no luck (actually this URL gives 403 in browser too).

Ok, found issue. Cookie was ok. URL taken from xcodereleases.com apparently was not working for the script.

The right URL is the one taken from https://developer.apple.com/download/more/. It actually has the same structure as posted in the forked gist, so we made some errors before, while trying to make that URL up on our own.

@vineetchoudhary Thanks.

This is great, thanks a lot.

Perfect, thank you much! Another fast method I have discovered is to retrieve the xip from the developer site, using a Safari browser and my iPhone's Personal Hotspot over Bluetooth.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

print "What is the URL of your Apple Downloads resource?\nURL:"
url = gets.strip

print "What is the ADCDownloadAuth cookie token:\nADCDownloadAuth: "
token = gets.strip

command = <<~SHELL
aria2c \
  --header "Host: adcdownload.apple.com" \
  --header "Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8" \
  --header "Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1" \
  --header "Cookie: ADCDownloadAuth=#{token}" \
  --header "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.2.14 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0 Mobile/14B72 Safari/602.1" \
  --header "Accept-Language: en-us" \
  --max-connection-per-server=16 \
  --split=16 \
  -d ~/Downloads \
  --continue=true \
  #{url}
SHELL

exec(command)

Changes

1. Puts the shell command in a heredoc for readability.
2. Used long argument on non-intuitive arguments...for understandability.
3. Removed the escapes on the double-quotes within the command because it no longer seems necessary within a heredoc...so far so good.
4. Added the continue argument, in case you want to pick up after a partial download via your browser.

Result

I can confirm, the above worked without modification.
After having downloaded 1/3rd of the way with Safari, I copied the partially downloaded Xcode_12.5.xip from the .download subfolder to the ~/Downloads folder a ran the above script. The download resumed without starting over. Completed download successfully passes integrity check.

Still works! Thank you;

macOS Catalina Version 10.15.7
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)

@BrainCrumbz trying to download using https://download.developer.apple.com/Developer_Tools/Xcode_13.2.1/Xcode_13.2.1.xip
Getting status=403. can you please post correct URL?

never-mind, https to http worked for me.

There is a tool that work great without any pain to download xcode.

You can download, install & switch between different versions of installed xcode.

It's called xcodes - - > https://github.com/RobotsAndPencils/xcodes

Alternatively, I found out that using a VPN can greatly increase the download speeds while using the regular App Store. Using Mullvad for this but other providers are probably similar

You solved my problem that I spent 3 years on finding the answer.

FYI. The latest Apple developer portal (as of 2022-Jun-6th) does not seem to include the ADCDownloadAuth cookie.