How to save a YouTube video

Here’s how to save a YouTube video if you’re using Safari. If you use other web browsers, the process is the same, but you may have to look around in the menus to find the right items.

1. View the YouTube video you wish to download and save.
2. Open Safari’s Activity window (from the Window menu).
3. In the Activity window click the disclosure triangle beside the correct Safari Tab or Window. A list appears showing all the activity for that Tab. In my screenshot you can see a long list of items that are part of the Queen Rania YouTube page I have open. Beside each item is a size in Kb or Mb.
4. Identify the biggest item — it’s likely to be several megabytes. In my screenshot it’s a 3.4Mb item at the top of the list.
5. Watch that item as the size may be constantly increasing. If it is that means the video is still loading.
6. Wait until the size of the biggest item stops increasing then hold down the Option key (⌥) and double click on that line. The movie file downloads to your Downloads folder. It may be named something like video.flv.