Questions, answered
What Waves needs, what it costs, and the handful of things that trip people up on a first install.
Do I need a TIDAL subscription?
Yes: a paid TIDAL plan and a one-time sign-in. Waves walks you through the browser login on first launch and reuses the cached token afterward. It saves from your own account, for your personal, non-commercial use, and can only save what your account can play.
Is Waves free?
Free and open source under the AGPL-3.0, the same license as Tidal-DL-NG and Tidaler. There is no paid tier, no trial, and nothing to unlock.
Which macOS version do I need?
macOS 12 Monterey or newer, on Intel and Apple silicon alike. The regular builds need macOS 15 Sequoia or newer; on Monterey through Sonoma, grab the legacy build (same app, an older bundled Qt). Homebrew and the in-app updater pick the right one automatically.
Which Windows or Linux version do I need?
There is no separate legacy build for either. The Windows x64 build is made on Windows Server 2022 and the ARM build on Windows 11 on ARM; Qt 6.11, which Waves is built on, supports Windows 10 version 1809 and newer. The Linux builds are made on Ubuntu 24.04, so they want a distribution of roughly that vintage or newer: on an older one the app will refuse to start with a glibc error rather than misbehave. The AppImage is the same binary in a different wrapper, so it does not get around that.
macOS says the app is damaged, or won't open it
macOS flags every downloaded app, and because these builds aren't Apple-notarized yet, Gatekeeper refuses to launch waves.app on its own. On first launch, click Done on the warning, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to the Waves entry. Confirm once and macOS remembers.
The old right-click → Open shortcut no longer works on macOS 15 Sequoia and later.
Windows SmartScreen is warning me
The builds aren't code-signed yet, so Defender SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC" on first launch. Click More info, then Run anyway. SmartScreen is a reputation check on new unsigned software, not malware detection, and it fades as a release accumulates clean installs.
How do I know it's safe?
Waves is open source, so you can read the code yourself. If that's not something you do, upload the downloaded zip to VirusTotal and have it checked before you even extract it. Trust, but verify.
Do I have to install FFmpeg myself?
No. FFmpeg powers in-app previews and a few conversions, and Waves installs a checksum-verified build for your OS and CPU with one click. Anything that would come out degraded without it warns you first, with a one-click path to fix it.
Will my saved music work with Plex?
That's the default. Files land as Artist/[Year] Album/Disc-Track. Artist - Title, a "clean album-artist" mode writes only the primary artist so Plex won't split multi-artist albums, and ReplayGain tags are written so supporting players level volume without touching the audio. Paths stay fully customizable.
Can I save straight to a NAS?
Yes. An SMB share is a first-class target. Finished tracks land in a few large writes rather than hundreds of small ones, a brief hiccup is retried on its own, and on macOS a share the system quietly ejected is remounted using the credentials already in your keychain.
Is there a command-line version?
No. Waves is GUI-first by design. If you prefer the command line, use Tidaler directly; it's a maintained, CLI-focused project, and the engine inside Waves descends from the same Tidal-DL-NG code it does.