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Daily Trick 16. Stream Download Video

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If you have followed UsingMac articles for quite some time, I believe that we all have known how to download YouTube video easily even in HD quality.

For large videos, however, we will need to wait several tens of minutes before we can open the video. Hey, why don't we just stream download it? Like what we did while watching the video on YouTube?

If you want to stream download it, follow these steps:

  1. I assume that the video download process is already begun and you can see it in the Download Activity (Safari: Cmd-Opt-L; Firefox: Cmd-J)
  2. Now Ctrl-Click on the download item (the video) and choose Show in Finder
  3. The filename will be shown with format .download, you can't open it
  4. Ctrl-Click on it and select Show Package Contents
  5. Inside you can see the file with video format .mp4
  6. Run it and you've successfully stream download the video

This trick works well for downloading video from YouTube. I haven't tested it for other video sites.

Categories: Daily Tricks, Video
Tags: Daily Trick, Download

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6 Comments

Harry

I think it's cmd-option-L to open download activity in safari

Wendy

Oh! Yes, thanks for reminding me. 

kevinn

Firefox doesn't have an activity window with CTRL-J

scoff

kevinn is right there's no activity window in Firefox
I think firebug's Net console could help but it's not what everyone would use

Wendy

Firefox should have the Download Activity window by default with shortcut CMD-J. If you access it from menubar, it will be Tools → Downloads.

Nite

For Firefox, I wouldn't worry about Activity window. Just get the Video Download Helper add-on and you're good to go. Right-click over the video and then  download!

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