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Why Macs Rule: Safari’s Activity Window

Posted: July 14th, 2008 | Author: Moey | Filed under: Apple+Mac | Tags: , | 7 Comments »

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.

Download YouTube Videos From Safari Using Activity Monitor

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).

Safari Activity Window

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.

+ Copied from Source.

7 Comments on “Why Macs Rule: Safari’s Activity Window”

  1. 1 Saned said at 3:54 AM on July 14th, 2008:

    you can download safari to a PC. You don’t need a mac to do this.

  2. 2 Moe Halawaty said at 5:10 AM on July 14th, 2008:

    yeah… I know this trick…
    but there is also the new RealPlayer, it does it seamlessly…

  3. 3 Samia-chan said at 6:31 AM on July 14th, 2008:

    & thats why every single thing in a mac is useful :P (die u mac haters die LOL) j/k

  4. 4 Moey said at 10:19 AM on July 14th, 2008:

    Saned; Safari is a mac invention.
    Moe; I know, but I use this way for ages now.
    Samia; See sexy :P

  5. 5 Bobby said at 9:20 PM on July 14th, 2008:

    Isn’t this just like Real Download Window? Whenever u are on a site that has Vids,mp3 it will pop up so u can download it.

  6. 6 Moey said at 9:24 PM on July 14th, 2008:

    this is older too :)

  7. 7 steve_leb said at 11:15 AM on July 28th, 2008:

    now thats useful.. thanks man..

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