[Tips] Download Facebook/YouTube Video in Google Chrome without any Software/Extension

Many of you’ve watched Facebook videos or YouTube videos and would have shared the link with your friends. But what if you want to download Facebook/YouTube video to your computer for offline use. If your favorite browser is Google Chrome, there are many methods to download Facebook/YouTube Video in Google Chrome. The popular methods include using an extension, or a software download manger, or web apps etc to fulfill your purpose of downloading Facebook/YouTube Video in Google Chrome.

But there is a simple method of downloading your Facebook/YouTube video from Chrome to your computer/pc using the CACHE method, without using any software or extension.

Concept behind CACHE method

Whenever you watch a Facebook/YouTube on the internet,  the streamed video file gets stored temporarily in a special folder on your computer. This special folder or location is called CACHE folder. So after viewing the Facebook/YouTube video, you can directly copy this file from the CACHE folder for offline line use. This normally saves bandwidth and time, as otherwise, you’ve to download the Facebook/YouTube video from start using any software or extension.

Location of CACHE folder in Google Chrome in Windows 7/Vista/XP

First of all, make sure that you can view hidden files and folder on your computer/pc/desktop/laptop.  This can be done by opening Windows Explorer.

Organize –> Folder and Search Option –> View pane.

Under the option, “Hidden files and folders” select the radio button for “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”.

This makes sure, that all the hidden files excluding the operating system files are visible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location of CACHE folder in Windows 7/Vista

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\UserData\Default\Cache

Normally C: is your system drive or where you’ve installed your operating system files. If you’ve installed your OS on another drive, using that particular drive letter.

The USER_NAME  is nothing but the user name with which you logged into your OS. Replace USER_NAME to your windows username.

For eg. my cache location in Windows 7 is as follows.

C:\Users\Ramarao\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache

After you reached this location, just order the files according to their size. Since, normally video files are of large size, you can see the Facebook/YouTube videos having large size and are listed first.

You can copy this file from the CACHE folder to any other folder and rename it according to your liking. You can play this file with any universal media player like VLC media player which can play all codecs. Since YouTube videos are generally in FLV format, you can also name the extension for this file as .flv, if it’s a YouTube video. But since, Facebook videos can be in any format, it’s better to leave the extension of the file unnamed.

Note: 1

Normally, files like data_1, data_3 etc (generally data_*) are not video files and may be system written files. Do not copy these files. As you can see the video file in the above image has the name f_0001f9. There will be also other files with the names f_00* which signifies that this is an video file

Note: 2

Also to avoid confusion, once you copied the file, it’s better to delete all the files in the CACHE folder and then start playing another Facebook/YouTube Video in Google Chrome.

Location of CACHE folder in XP

C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

The names are similar to the things explained above.

The above method not only works for Facebook/YouTube videos, but also other videos  like Metacafe, Dailymotion, Veoh or Yahoo videos. Once you downloaded the Facebook/YouTube videos, you can convert to any other format using suitable video format converting software.