Master Download IF URL Rules With Contains, Regex, and Logic

danito

Sometimes the list is right but you only want part of it: full-size images, not thumbnails; one CDN path, not another. Rather than hand-editing hundreds of lines, you set download if url rules and let the extension decide what saves. The rules run at download time and leave your original list completely untouched.

The building blocks: Contains, Not Contains, Regex

Download IF URL gives you three kinds of conditions, and you can stack as many as you need.

  • Contains. Add multiple Contains rules to require that a URL include certain text, such as a folder name, a size marker like large, or a specific path segment.
  • Not Contains. Add multiple Not Contains rules to exclude URLs with unwanted text, like thumb, icon, or a tracking path.
  • Regex. For patterns plain text cannot express, a regular expression matches structured URL shapes, like a numeric ID range or a particular extension pattern.

AND/OR logic ties the download if url rules together

A single condition is rarely enough, so the rule set supports AND/OR logic across all of your conditions. With AND, a URL must satisfy every rule to pass, useful for tight targeting like “contains products AND does not contain thumb.” With OR, matching any one rule is enough, which is handy when several different paths are all acceptable. Combining Contains, Not Contains, Regex, and the right logic operator lets you describe almost any “keep this, skip that” intent precisely.

Evaluated at download time, list stays intact

This is the part that makes the feature safe to experiment with: the rules are applied when you download, not when you paste. Your pasted URL list stays exactly as it is. So you can tighten a rule, run the download, loosen it, and run again, all against the same untouched source. Bulk Image Downloader From URL List treats download if url rules as a filter layer over your data rather than a destructive edit, which means a misfire never costs you your list.

Practical recipes

A few combinations cover most real jobs:

  1. Skip thumbnails: one Not Contains rule for thumb and another for small, joined with AND.
  2. Only one section: a Contains rule for the section’s path.
  3. Multiple acceptable sources: two Contains rules joined with OR.
  4. Precise shapes: a Regex rule for a filename or ID pattern when text matching is too blunt.

Why filtering at download time helps

There is a real advantage to applying these conditions late rather than editing the list early. Because the rules run at download time, you can keep one master list, the full haul from a scrape, and produce different subsets from it without ever maintaining separate files. Need the full-size images today and the thumbnails next week? Flip the rules and run again against the same source. The list does not drift, you never accidentally delete a URL you later wanted, and there is no risk of saving over your original data. It turns one collection into many targeted downloads, each defined purely by its rule set.

Where it fits your workflow

Use download IF URL when scraper-side filtering already narrowed the haul but the final cut depends on URL structure. It pairs well with auto folders and the file-type filter, doing the “which URLs” decision while those handle “where” and “what type.” Master a couple of patterns and your download if url rules become the gate that lets only the right images through, every run, without ever rewriting the list by hand.