Zamzar is an online file converter and one of the easiest ways I know to get a YouTube video stored on your hard drive, rather than requiring access to the web whenever you want to access it.

Below are the steps to obtaining a ‘hard copy’ of a YouTube video. This is particularly useful for teachers when they want to show a video in class, but do not want to use up their bandwidth showing the same video to different classes.

1. Open up Internet Explorer or whatever web browser you like using.
2. Type ‘www.youtube.com’ into the URL field at the top of your browser.
3. Find the YouTube video you wish to download using the search box in the top right corner of the site.
4. Once you have found the video you want and click on it to begin playing it.
5. Copy the URL of this page. This can be achieved by highlighting the URL, then right clicking on it and selecting ‘Copy’ or by the holding down the ‘Ctrl’ key on the keyboard and pressing the ‘C’ key.

6. Type ‘www.zamzar.com’ into the URL field up the top of your browser.

7. On the Zamzar site, under the section entitled ‘Step 1’, click on the word ‘URL’ in the sentence “Select files or URL to convert (up to 100MB in size)”.

8. Delete the ‘http://’ already inserted into this box and then right click in the box and click ‘paste’ on the menu that comes up. You should see a long incomprehensible URL in this box now that will end with something along the lines of ‘AbcDeF123’. Click the ‘Add URL’ button.

9. Under the section entitled ‘Step 2’, select a format to convert to from the drop-down list. I recommend you select ‘mpg’ which is the third option from the bottom.

10. Under the section ‘Step 3’, enter the email address you want the link to the video to be sent to. e.g. staffmember@gmail.com.

11. Click ‘Convert’ under step 4.

12. You will notice a progress bar appear at the bottom of the page. Wait for it to complete. You can now close Internet Explorer.

13. After a few minutes of processing, Zamzar will send you a link to claim your video via email. Click on this link (it will be the longest URL in the email).

14. You will be taken to a page that has a green button that reads “Download Now”. Click on this button.

15. A box will pop up asking you what you want to do with this file. Select “Save” rather than “Open” and then select the folder in which you which to store your video.

16. Congratulations! You now have a copy of the video stored on your computer for viewing at your leisure.

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