Get YouTube Videos (for Mac)

by neilium

30K1319

Intro: Get YouTube Videos (for Mac)

This article is inspired by Tetranitrate's YouTube Instructable. Unike theirs, this one shows you how to download a video for Mac and covert it using freeware! What's better than free!

Links to freeware needed:

Safari
iSquint

PS: I am not liable for what you download. The movie I show is made available by the artist on his website (if he is offended and wants me to take this down, I will). If you download something your not supposed to and you get caught, it is not my fault. Your the one that did it, not I. Follow the rules of copyright.

STEP 1: Find Your Favorite Video

This step is pretty self explanatory. Be sure to use Safari and search for your favorite YouTube Video. It's as easy as that!

STEP 2: Go to the Activities Window.

Next, you need to go to Window and down to Activity (both highlighted in blue). Click on Activity to bring up the next dialog box.

STEP 3: Download the Movie

Once the dialog box has popped up you need to look for the YouTube page among all the page titles (shown in bold) and files listed in the window (this may be difficult if you have a lot of pages open.)

Once you locate it and expand all the activities going on in the page, look for the largest file size (this is shown in the right hand corner).

Most of the files found in a YouTube page are small files while most FLV files are several megabytes.

Once you locate the largest file, double click on it. This should cause another window to open and a download to ensue after that called "get_video".

Now that the FLV file is downloading to the desktop, we have to wait.

STEP 4: Converting the Video

Great, now you have located the file and downloaded it to the desktop. What's next? Well, you need to open up your freshly installed iSquint application.

Drag and drop the get_video file from the desktop into the tray where it says Drag file below.

Adjust your settings at the top and click start.

This process only lasts a few minutes at the most.

STEP 5: The Final Step

Now that the file has been converted, you should get something that looks like the Quicktime MP4 file below the original FLV file we downloaded (iSquint should have sent the converted file to the desktop).

The rest is up to you:
1. You can rename it and drag it into iTunes to put on your iPod or iPhone.
2. You can email it to friends so they can save it for themselves.
3. You can even edit it, and even post it back up onto YouTube!

The possibilities are endless!

18 Comments

JerryN18 7 years ago

Believe it or not, I successfully use Video grabber
to get HD videos for Mac from YouTube. It is fully compatible with any web
browsers including Google chrome,Safari, IE, Firefox, Opera, etc. What’s more, it has
full support for both Windows and Mac operating system. So whenever you buy a
new iMac or Windows PC, this app can solve your tough problems and be your
great partner. You can have an access to free download videos in your preferred
formats. Thus it will be a piece of cake
for you to enjoy videos on Mac. Above all, it’s free of charge!

Hope
it can help you!

mccannip 12 years ago

PLEASE READ THIS!!!! there is an easier way to download youtube videos! just go to www.savevid.com and copy the youtube URL and paste it to the website! and select what video format you want (.flv, .mp4, 1080pHD, 720pHD, 480p,360p,240p) or whatever video file you mac supports! on my macbook white it supports 1080p, 720p, .mp4 .flv and all other options the sites offers! PLWASE BELIEVE ME THIS WORKS ON COMPUTERS OTHER THAN MACS! I TESTED THIS MYSELF! THIS IS NOT BULL!

ATImaster005 15 years ago

I found an application ONLY for mac that has a web browser built in and can download the videos from youtube or any other site that has flash videos. It is called TubeTV. It is ALOT easier to use.

brokenjack 15 years ago

isquint and it's big brother visualhub were the best programs for the mac for video encoding in my humble opinion. Unfortunately they have been discontinued. Fortunately they also have gone open source in the form of filmredux. We'll have to wait though for a stable release.

=SMART= 16 years ago

i use iSquint all the time, personally i think its the best video/audio file converter out there

nikkirosety 16 years ago

I use iSquint. It is pretty quick for what is doing and I like how you can change the settngs,.. PLUS it is free.

nikkirosety 16 years ago

Yeah I have used vixy.net, it is pretty good, can take awhile. You can also extract audio from YouTube videos on vixy.net.

bubba77 16 years ago

theres a browser called tubetv thats completely free and converts them when its done :) but i like this alot

KevinRez 16 years ago

Thanks its awesome. I ended up teaching my dad how to do this. :)

LasVegas 16 years ago

Good job neilium! Very easy to follow and quite useful!

caseyrebecca 16 years ago

this is great - thank you so much! now i can show the whole world the robotchicken "chicken law and order" scene. thanks!

kreationism 16 years ago

yes, thank you. this is AMAZING. its so easy. post more mac hacks :-P

joshc0311 16 years ago

Thank You!! ive been lookin for a good way to do this and my usual way, vixy.net (online converter), hasnt been working