Tools for Thought

Freeware Windows app Free Music Zilla was designed to catch music streaming through sites like Last.fm and Pandora in your Downloads folder. Though unpublicized, the function works equally well for Flash videos like those found on YouTube.

Launch Free Music Zilla prior to playing the video you want to save. By default, FMZ will show the file in your C:\Downloads directory with a checkbox. Once the video starts playing, the State column to the far right will show the status as Wait for Downloading. Click the Download button while the number in the Leech Timeout column is still counting down. Once the download reaches 100%, rename and move the file to your preferred directory.

If you don’t already have a media player capable of playing the FLV files from YouTube, download Videolan’s excellent VLC Media Player.