Load Video Files onto an Amazon Fire TV Stick

I ran into a frustrating problem getting local video files to play on my Amazon Fire TV Stick. Goal: Reliably transfer a local video file from my Mac to my Amazon Fire TV Stick over the same network, then play it in VLC. TL;DR: Use LocalSend on your Mac, Downloader on the Fire TV Stick, and VLC to play the downloaded file. Keep both devices on the same network. Background My Samsung TV became increasingly laggy and stopped responding reliably to the remote. I tried the basics: power cycling, new batteries, resetting the TV, but nothing seemed to fix the issue. I remembered that I had an Amazon Fire Stick (not a great device by any means), but I had gotten a good price on it a while back. I purchased it so that I could load the SmartTube App as an alternative frontend for YouTube (complete with ad blocking). Rather than get a new television, I remembered that I could use the Fire Stick interface to bypass the Samsung UI. Everything Worked – Until I Tried to Load a Video File This…