How to Save Any Online Streaming Videos on the Computer

Online streaming videos are everywhere and between the videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms there’s a ton of content to be watched.

In many cases people find online streaming videos to be convenient, as they are able to watch them immediately and don’t have to wait for the entire video to download beforehand.

However, as much as online streaming videos can be convenient in some cases, they can be inconvenient in others.

How To Save Online Streaming Videos

In particular, if you like to watch the same video repeatedly – you’ll end up having to stream it a new each time, which can very quickly consume your monthly data allowance.

Additionally, if you aren’t online you won’t be able to watch any of the videos, as they require an internet connection.

Because of those limitations, you may have wondered if it was possible to save online streaming videos – especially the ones that you watch regularly. Generally, most platforms don’t provide you an option to ‘save’ videos, but there are ways that you can get around that:

Websites that download streaming videos

One of the most popular ways to download streaming videos is by using websites that provide that as a service. With these websites, all you need to do is enter the URL of the video that you want to download and after a short while, you’ll be given a link that you can use to download them.

While this method is easy, it does have limitations of its own. Most websites will only allow you to download videos from specific platforms, and there isn’t really a one size fits all option.

Additionally, app-based streaming videos from platforms such as Netflix or live video streams can’t be downloaded at all using this method.

On top of that while the basic download is free in most cases, to download higher quality videos or videos that exceed a certain length you may have to pay a fee.

Browser add-ons and extensions

Another popular method is to use various browser add-ons and extensions (mainly for Chrome or Firefox) that provide the option to download online streaming videos.

Some of these add-ons use a similar method to the websites mentioned above, but others will scan web pages for streaming video content and find their source.

Overall, however, both these methods have the same limitations, and can only download videos from specific platforms that aren’t app-based or live. Similarly, they may also require a fee for access to their full range of features or to download higher quality videos.

Screen recorders

The only real way to be able to download absolutely any type of online streaming videos is to technically not download it, but instead ‘record’ it from your screen.

That can be accomplished using screen recorders that will essentially capture the footage while it is playing on your screen. Once the footage has been recorded, it can then be saved on your computer’s hard drive.

Due to the fact that the video will be recorded directly, this method will let you save any videos – regardless of the platform that they’re using. In short, you will have no problem saving Netflix videos, live video streams, and any other type of online streaming videos as well.

The only caveat is that you’ll need a screen recorder, software like Movavi Screen Recorder can be a big help.

It is a simple and intuitive screen recorder, and you can easily set it up so that it records the area of your screen where the online streaming video is playing.

When you do use Movavi Screen Recorder to capture video from screen, you can also set up the other recording parameters such as the frame rate, audio source, sound levels, and so on.

Its features will even let you record keystrokes and mouse actions, or set a timer to automate the recording so that you don’t need to manually start or stop it.

After you’ve finished recording the video, you can save it in a format of your choice so that you can watch it at any time.

At that point, you may want to use the presets in Movavi Screen Recorder, as they will let you automatically optimize your video for various devices and platforms.

As you can see while there are several methods that can be used to save online streaming videos, the only truly universal method is if you record them from your screen.

Be sure to try it out, as you could save a ton of bandwidth and find it much more convenient once you do.

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