Use Safari’s Activity Window to Save YouTube Videos (and More)
- Posted in Apple
- Comments 35
Safari comes with an incredibly powerful tool called the “Activity” window, which can be used to download YouTube (or any other video site) videos, files from websites, MP3s from Last.fm or any other type of file present that can’t be directly downloaded, right to your desktop. There are many third party applications and services that allow users to download YouTube videos directly, but many people do not realize that this functionality is built right into Safari.
To illustrate this, I’m going to use YouTube videos as an example (.flv file format), but as stated previously this works with any online file.
Simply go to the YouTube video page where the video plays, click Window -> Activity and a window will appear similar to the one pictured below.
We’re shown a range of different files in this list, but we’re looking for the flv video file, which will most likely be the largest file of the list (highlighted below).
Select that file, hit copy and paste it into the Downloads window (Window -> Downloads), and the video will start downloading to your desktop. Note: With YouTube videos, the downloaded file will be called “get_video” with no file extension, you’ll need to rename it to “something.flv”, in order to be able to play it.
Just tried this with Safari on Windows, and it’s not allowing me to right-click on it and select Copy. It’s also not working when I use the keyboard shortcut for Copy (Ctrl + C)…. any ideas on what might be going wrong?
That’s awesome! Too bad I seriously just switched to Firefox 3 over the past few days. This will make it worth keeping safari in my dock! Thanks!
By the way, I haven’t seen this site in a while, and I must say- I really like the new site design. It’s sweet.
Thank you so very much.
Your guide was straight forward,informative, and best of all, it delivers what it promises. Cheers, exactly what I was looking for!
I also use Firefox, simply because I like the feel of it more, but use safari for little things like this.
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Hey thank you SO much for this little trick ! Apple should publicize these cool, built-in features more. Again, thanks for sharing the love.
its a nice idea, i will try it the next time i use safari. right now i am still prefering firefox3
Spencer: You double click it, and a dialogue should come up for you to save. Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t close the untitled window that opens up with it, otherwise your download will be canceled and Safari will crash.
cool and I’ve downloaded it and then added the .flv extension and all, BUT still I couldnt watch it via idvd or quicktime, why?
[IMO]
Safari is the only non-IE browser that very stable and as quick as I need, and compatible with .nsf.
If you hate IE, then choose Safari for full compatiblity.
For fun I choose Opera and for general surfing Firefox 2 is better than FIrefox3.
I have not tried Firefox 3, I will have to check it out.
12/1/08 I have tried this before and it has worked fine. lately in stead of the get_video the line has in it google_vid and it down loads as video.flv, and all you get is the sound, no picture. Is youtube doing something different or is the flaw in safari 3.2.1? really frustrating as i was trying to get a video for class.
@HAJ: You need to convert it to a format such as mp4. I use VisualHub, but sadly, it’s no longer available: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/03/techspansion-closes-visualhub-discontinued/
ok, how come the sound did not download with the video?
dl
This is a great feature, and I use it all the time. An alternative (for mac at least) is to hold down option and double click on the desired file, and it’ll be downloaded straight away
For Mac users,you can follow this guide “How to download youtube videos on Mac for free”:
http://burn-dvd-mac.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-free-download-youtube-hd-video.html
windows users:
hold control and double click desired file to d/l
[...] now I’ve been wanting a way to download YouTube videos in 720p. I knew how to do it in Safari using the Activity Window, so it’s only been since I’ve switched to GNU/Linux as my main that the need has became [...]
I did it but the file saved to the downloads folder and was called “video.flv”, When I moved it to the desktop and tried to open it it said something to the effect of “there is no default application with which to open this file”. What to do!?
Ryan, you need to find your quicktime app and select it to open the file. It should play fine once you tell it which app to use.
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ive just installed safari. but cant be able to find ” window ” activity ” . some body pls help me.
It used to work for me and I loved it, but now the files that downloads are a watch.htlm, and they just open as a web page…
Anyone know why?
I download the file with Safari activity window on my mac and get this when I try to open it in VLC….”no suitable decoder module for fourcc `undf’.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.”
What is this?
Spencer: I’ve had the same problem, but today I found the answer.
Just hold Ctrl key and then double click the file, it will start downloading…
Inform me if it worked
Guys – I’ve been using this feature for the past few weeks, and it has been working fine. Now, every file I download says “videoplayback” rather than video.flv. Why is this? Does anyone know how to make them all flv files?