How to Download YouTube Videos with Apple's Safari Browser

Google's YouTube has revolutionized the way people share information. Exercise how-to's, electronics demonstrations, political commentary, tutorials, original music sharing, musical instrument reviews, and comedy sketches are just a handful of the ways that creative people all over the world have found to use YouTube. There are some real gems and useful information to be found with this monumentally popular flash video service.

But there is one drawback: the videos are imprisoned on the web with no way to save the videos to a user's computer hard drive. However it is not impossible. I want to teach you how to use some basic software tools to convert an online YouTube video into a format you can use, view, and share locally on your computer.

The Browser

An important tool in accomplishing this task is having a browser with the right features. I am a Mac user and I use Apple's Safari browser. Firefox, Internet Explorer and other browsers may be able to download YouTube videos in a similar way, but for the purposes of this tutorial I will be using Safari.

It should be noted that Safari is available to Windows as well as Mac users and is a free download from Apple's website. So if your current browser can not download Flash video from YouTube then you have free access to a great browser that accomplishes this task for you.

Once you have Safari installed on your machine, launch the browser and point it to the YouTube website. Next, search for the video that you wish to download and when it comes up in the search results click it. The video will begin playing. At this point you can either pause it or let it play. It does not matter. Press the following key combination on your Mac's keyboard: Command-Option-A. The "Command" key may say the world "Command" or it may simply have an Apple symbol depending on the model of your keyboard.

This keyboard shortcut combination will open Safari's Activity window which lists all of the files and actions that Safar is performing. Look closely at the list you will see file sizes listed next to the convoluted names of the files. Most are very small. However if you scroll the through this list you will find one that is much larger than the others. It will probably be well over 1 MB (whereas all the rest will be in terms of kb). Double-click this larger file and the browser will begin downloading it to your hard drive into whatever location you have set as the default location for downloading files from the Internet. It will be in the .flv format.

The Player

Chances are your run-of-the-mill default player will not be able to playback an .flv video. Special software is needed to play it or convert it (see Bonus section). The best player for the job is the VLC player which is available for both Windows and Mac. After downloading and installing this simple program, simply clicking the .flv file will launch the video in the VLC player. However if you want to take your new video on the go or view it with iTunes, there is one more step that must be taken to accomplish this.

Bonus: How to Get Downloaded Videos into iTunes and on an iPod

MPEG Streamclip is a simple program that runs on Windows and Macintosh that will allow conversion of a number of video formats into other formats. More to the point MPEG Streamclip has the capability for converting the .flv YouTube file into a format that is compatible with iTunes, Quicktime, iPhone, and iPod.

Start by downloading and launching MPEG Streamclip. From the File menu click Open and navigate to the .flv file. The video will open in MPEG Streamclip but will not play. Now go back to the File menu and there are now a number of options that were previously grayed out including the Export option. Select this option and a new screen will open. The now open screen contains many parameters that can be manipulated to obtain just the kind of output format you need for your video. The simplest means would be to click the iTunes button located at the top and select the iPod video size option that would best fit your particular iPod's screen. Select the option and click the "Make..." button at the bottom and MPEG Streamclip will begin to export your video.

Once it is complete just add the converted video to your iTunes library (like you would any other video or mp3). You can now sync this new content to your iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV. And as you can see MPEG Streamclip can be useful to converting to any number of formats for any number of devices (Blackberry, Zune, PSP, etc.).

Safari, VLC and MPEG Streamclip are a few simple, free, and readily-available tools for you to download, convert, view, and share YouTube videos so that you are not limited to viewing your favorite content online only. Good luck!