iCap FAQ (Troubleshooting)

The incomplete mark means the download for that video did not finish (for example, due to an interrupted connection). While it's showing, offline playback isn't available, and even if tapping it plays something, the app is actually just reloading it from the original site each time, which uses data and will stop working if the source video is removed or changed. Choosing "Download" again from the video's menu will retry the download using the saved source URL.

However, some sites generate a fresh video URL on every playback and invalidate it after a short time, so retrying after a delay can fail on those sites. On such sites, retry the download right after playing the video in the built-in browser, without much delay.

icap can handle three kinds of video: MP4, HLS, and encrypted HLS. Encrypted HLS cannot be converted to mp4 after it has already been downloaded as-is.

To reliably convert HLS (including encrypted HLS) to mp4, choose "Convert to mp4 (recommended)" at download time instead of converting later from the share menu — this converts while saving, and succeeds even for encrypted HLS. Note that on some sites, conversion-while-downloading can still fail; this is a known limitation I'm working on.

icap has a "device mode" feature that changes the information a site receives about which device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) you're browsing with, known as the user agent. Most sites switch their layout based on this, but some sites ignore the user agent and determine the device by other means, which can cause them to always show the PC/iPad layout on iPad.

Some of those layouts also use a mechanism called blob, which hides the video URL during playback — when blob is used, icap cannot capture the underlying video (you'll see "blob:..." displayed during playback in this case). On sites where both conditions occur together, downloading from iPad is currently difficult. The same site will often save successfully from an iPhone, so please try saving from an iPhone if you have one (I plan to improve this in the future).

Low available storage on your device can cause a range of issues, including download errors and browser display problems. Check your available space under Settings > General > iPhone Storage, delete unneeded data, and try again.

There is currently no feature for freely reordering videos. As a workaround, you can prefix each video's name with a number indicating your desired order (e.g. "001", "002") and then sort by name. It's a bit of extra work, but it does the job.

A video saved as mp4 is a single file, so you can save it to your camera roll or hand it off to another app via the share menu. From the video list, tap the "≡" icon next to a video, then "Share", then "Save Video" to save it to your camera roll. Tapping any other app icon in that same menu sends the video directly to that app.

Note that HLS (m3u8) represents one video as a collection of multiple files, so it isn't supported for handing off to other apps or saving to the camera roll. Convert it to mp4 first, either via "Convert HLS to mp4" from the video's menu, or by choosing "Convert to mp4 (recommended)" at download time. Once converted, videos that were originally HLS can also be saved to the camera roll or handed off to other apps.

If "Save Video" still doesn't appear even after allowing Settings > Save Videos - iCap > Photos > All Photos, I'm still investigating the cause.

icap creates a dedicated folder for each video, storing the video file (mp4) and management records inside it. Normally, the top level of icap's managed folder should only contain each video's folder plus a few settings files such as bookmark.json and history.json — if any other file exists there, this error appears. In most cases, this happens because of a bug that created a file there, or because a file was copied or moved directly into that top-level folder using the Files app or similar.

Open the "Save Videos - iCap" folder in Apple's own Files app and delete the offending file at the top level (the .mp4 file named in the error message) to resolve it.

icap never automatically deletes videos you've saved (there's no limit on how many videos you can store or how long they're kept — they won't disappear unless deleted). If a video is missing, open the "Save Videos - iCap" folder in Apple's Files app and check whether that video's folder (containing files like movie.mp4, movie.info, and thum.png) actually exists.

If it doesn't, the most common causes are:

• Swiping left to delete it from icap's video list (this deletes immediately and cannot be recovered, and it won't appear in "Recently Deleted" or similar)
• Deleting an individual file from Settings > General > iPhone Storage (this also deletes immediately and cannot be recovered)

Note that if you deleted files or folders inside the icap folder via the Files app itself, they move to "Recently Deleted" (kept for roughly 30 days), so recovery may be possible from there. If a ".Trash" item appears in the video list, that's also a sign the deletion likely happened via the Files app.

A data-loss bug is not impossible, but I haven't received similar reports from other users, so I consider it unlikely. As a precaution, I strongly recommend backing up your data to a Mac or PC regularly.

I'm sorry, but deleting a video from icap's own video list (as opposed to via the Files app) removes it immediately and completely, with no temporary storage such as a trash, so it cannot be recovered. If you have a backup on a Mac or PC, you can restore it from there.

On the other hand, if you delete data inside the icap folder via Apple's own Files app, it moves to that app's Trash, so an accidental deletion there can be recovered from it. I recommend backing up regularly going forward.

Open the Settings tab, tap "Clear All Cache", and confirm "Yes" in the dialog to clear the cache. As a precaution, fully quitting and restarting icap afterward should resolve it.