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)

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.