It seems that we are constantly looking up entertainment or other videos on YouTube, but if you don’t have an active internet connection available you won't be watching anything. That is, unless you download the videos to your hard drive. We’ll show you how it’s done with just Safari and QuickTime 7 Pro.lot of complicated software, but we’ll show you how it’s done with just Safari and QuickTime 7 Pro.

Please note that we do not condone internet piracy. Only download videos that are in the public domain and not under copyright protection.

What You Need:

>> Mac OS X
>> Safari 5
>> QuickTime 7 Pro ($29.99)

1. Find a YouTube Video

Any video should work fine, but don’t pirate copyrighted material.

The first step to downloading a YouTube video to your Mac is to find a video that you want to download. Simply navigate to the YouTube page of the video you wish to download and ensure that the video is set to the resolution you want (360, 480, 720, etc.), and then pause the video.

2. Open the Activity Menu

While the video is still loading, open Safari’s Activity Menu by clicking Window > Activity.  Once there, locate the URL of the file that is loading. The loading file will appear in the Activity dialog with a status of “x of y MB.”
 

You may need to click on the disclosure triangle to show the loading content.

When you see this file status, double-click on it in the Activity dialog. It will open a new tab or window in Safari (depending on you Safari tab preferences). When this new tab opens, copy the URL in the address bar of Safari. This is the URL that we will open in QuickTime.

Click in the address bar and press Command + A, and then press Command + C to ensure you copy the entire URL.

3. Load Video in QuickTime

Ensure that you clear any existing text from this box before pasting in the new URL.

Once you have the URL of the YouTube video copied to your clipboard, open QuickTime 7 Pro, and press Command + U on your keyboard (or click File > Open URL). In the resulting dialog box, paste in (Command + V) the URL that you copied from Safari, and then click the OK button. 

You can play the video inside of QuickTime just as you would on YouTube.

After doing that, a video window will open and the YouTube video will begin loading in QuickTime. You will need to wait until the entire video has loaded before trying to complete the next step.

4. Save, Save, Save

After the full video has successfully loaded in QuickTime 7 Pro, the File > Save option will be visible. Click this to get started with the save process.

Ensure that only the “Self-contained movie” is selected as the save option.

In the resulting dialog, specify a save name, select the save location, and then ensure that the option for “Self-contained movie” is selected. When you are ready to save the video, click the Save button. After a few seconds, the video will be outputted to the save location you selected.

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