Sometimes I come across a movie clip from youtube that I want to download to my mac, so that I could load it on to my iPhone. I tried several solutions both shareware and freeware. Final I came across a solution that was already build into my browser Safari that made it possible for me to download videos from youtube. Now Im not sure this works for windows as well though it should do. Here is what you do.

Open Safari and navigate to the webpage containing the flash movie that you want to download (for example youtube). In the menu bar you need to locate the Window menu. Here you will find a function called Activity. Clicking this will bring up a new window called Activity. Now the next part is a bit tricky, however, it helps if you only have one webpage open. Now you need to navigate to the webpage, in the Activity window, from which you want to download a flash movie.

The content that you are looking for will have the ending .flv, if it is a flash movie. This movie is probably the webpage element with the largest size, so it is easier to locate what you are looking for is located in the right column this is called Status. When you have located the flv file, or the largest file, which is probably still loading. Then just double click it to download. This will open a new window, which won’t show anything, but the video will start downloading to you default download location.

Example: I want to download the comedy/standup show “Jeff Dunham – Achmed the dead terrorist” to be able to watch it on my iPhone =)

• Open Safari and navigate to youtube.com and locate Jeff Dunham – Achmed the dead terrorist, which currently is the 7th most watched movie at youtube.
• Open Activity window (Window -> Activity)
• In my Activity window I now have a title: YouTube – Jeff Dunham – Achmed the Dead Terrorist in the left column, Address.
• Expand this title and look for the largest value in the right column, Status.
• Locate the file, this one is called something like http://v9.cache.googlevideo.com/get_video…..(25.0 MB)
• Double click it and it will start downloading.
• That is it now you just have to be patient until it is done, and you can the find it in you default download location.

When you are done download the file you can watch it with vlc-mediaplayer or convert it to mp4 for import to your iPhone. If you don’t know how to do this, click here: HowTo: Convert flv to mp4 iPhone for free!

This tutorial can be applied for all webpages, where you want to download media in theory you should be able to download from all sites that uses flash content or similar forms of media.

Tagged: Download, Flash, flv, media, Safari, Tutorial