¥n¥n¥n
Browse > Home / TechTips, Tips / How to save Adobe Flash files in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer

How to save Adobe Flash files in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer

Save Shockwave Flash swf files off the web to your hard disk from Firefox or Internet Explorer. There’s a good chance that the animation or cartoon game you want to download was created using Flash. Use these tips for downloading Flash files from the Internet to your hard drive. You save all Flash animations from web pages, including Flash websites, Flash game, Flash Animations, Flash Tutorials, Flash Movie Trailers, Flash Advertisements, or what ever Flash files you find in the web.

But saving flash animations from websites is not so easy. Macromedia Flash player context menu has no option to download or save the Flash movie from the web browser. The right-click context menu of most browsers won’t work on Flash objects. So I will share some techniques (work-arounds) to save flash files from Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Opera or MyIE2 web browsers.

1. Saving Flash files from Firefox

Method # 1

a. Click Tools – Page Info
b. Click the Media Tab on the Page Info Windows
c. The media tab has a complete list (with preview) of Images, CSS Files and Shockwave Flash files that were downloaded by the Firefox browser while rendering (loading) the page.
d. Scroll down the list and locate the swf file.
e. Click the “Save As” button. Select some directory on your hard drive and save the file (No need for a third-party plug-in)

Method # 2

a. Type about:blank in the Firefox address bar
b. Now click List cache entries or directly type about:cache?device=disk (Disk cache device)
c. Press Ctrl+F and try to location the flash file by typing some part of website URL or the flash file name or just .swf. After some hit and trial, you should be able to locate the swf file URL
d. Click the SWF URL to open the Cache Entry Information page. Right click on the link and choose “Save link as”

2. How to save flash in IE browser

Method # 1


a. Click Tools – Internet Options
b. In the General Tab, click the Settings button available in the Temporary Internet Files group.
c. Click View Files to open your Temporary Internet Files folder. Depending upon your IE settings, the Temp. folder can contain tens of thousands of files.
d. Click View – Details. Now click View – Arrange Icons By – Internet Address. Depending upon the webpage, there could one or more Flash files (Shockwave Flash Object) under the Inernet Address.
e. Once you find the right flash file, right-click and choose Copy. Then paste the swf file in any other directory. Be sure to
keep the page and IE open to avoid purging of the cache file.

Method # 2

1. Get a download accelerator like Flashget and tell it to automatically download the shockwave extention (*.swf)
2. Or download a free IE plug-in for saving flash files.

3. How to save Flash files from Opera browser
Just like IE, Opera stores the flash files in the browser cache.

If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!

Written by Melissa Hicks · Filed Under TechTips, Tips 
Tagged:

Recommended Articles for YOU

  • http://rezaulhasan.webs.com Reza

    Really great. Thanks.

  • Colin

    Excellent post. Thanks.

  • Trev

    Thanks. Firefox V2. Page info wasn’t offering anything up apart from pointing to a nothingless embedded swf and empty mp3 file. Couldn’t see any way to put (the right files) files together directly from cache. Found this page. Ah, swf were nothing much after all, sound file was finally located in cache, where upon it downloaded it from the net instead of the hard drive. Didn’t mind either way.

    Great Tip.

    • jackrollin

      Unfortunately, I am using Windows 7 system and I just can’t find the video file in temporary folder. Especially for YouTube, it said that Microsoft has helped to hide the video source from internet traffic.
      So i am now using a streaming video recorder to save video from website. It is able to download videos automatically and and change video file formats. It’s a great help for me.

  • rick

    Tried this using firefox. Gets to lin via net, but still don’t know how to save to hard drive

  • rick

    previous post I meant gets to “link” via net but does not get to hard drive. The flash file I want is on a tv news website and will eventually be taken down. I would like to save to hard drive before it is gone from net

  • Rajeet Walia

    Thanks

  • BrentNewland

    How could no one notice in almost an entire year that it’s about:cache and not about:blank in method 2 for firefox?

  • Jim

    Excellent post Thanks..jim

  • Syah

    Good Morning,,
    This article really help me,,
    keep your great job sire…

  • agung

    thanx

    it’s help me so much

  • batman

    thx much:) now i can save all the swf videos i’d like:)

  • Bob

    Wouldn’t work for me!!

  • kenzo

    thanks ,but it doenst work for this page :’
    http://star.zing.vn/star/phong-thu/Pha-Le-Tim.9965.html
    plz help me…

    • Hassan

      you can install Orbit dowlader and then activate Grab++, from the window then you download your song, movie…

  • rachel

    the about:cache also works in google chrome

  • Philly

    Thank you very much- worked a treat!

  • Lizzie

    i got to the copy file bit on the internet explorer one… working fine until you say paste it into any other directory….

    hate to sound stupid but what do you mean by directory… where do i paste it to?

    Thanks

  • Lizzie

    actually… can I amend what I said above..

    I’ve managed to paste it somewhere but it wont display the image.. it comes up with a message saying that it cant open it, how do I get it to display?

    I am a bit rubbish with computers, apologies

    L

  • IrvingMan

    it Really works, thank you!!

  • Md. Sameer Sazzad

    Thankssssssss for your advice…… i have done it with your help !!!!

  • http://www.webmediamakers.com/ Website Design Delhi

    Hey Great Tutorial!
    I though i need any software to download it from any website but i have done it using firefox in few clicks!

    Thanks

  • http://myworld.ebay.fr/acheter_viagra_ici_0.7euro Axiomiquoma

    le message excellent et opportun. http://myworld.ebay.fr/acheter_viagra_ici_0.7euro/ viagra [url=http://myworld.ebay.fr/acheter_viagra_ici_0.7euro/]viagra 100mg[/url]

  • zarya

    hi.. thanks a lot:)

  • Kelly

    Didn’t work for me. Trying to save one of the “elf yourself” videos from Office Max. Didn’t work.

  • Mohamed

    Thanks a million.. you helped me!

  • Pradeep

    Thanks a lot.

  • joemaurice

    thanks fot this article viagra

  • http://www.jeffmarck.net Jeff min Haram

    If you have a PDF converter that acts through a “print” function, you can do this if you want them to end up as PDF anyway:

    1. Click on the document in the Flash Window
    2. Firefox menu “Print”
    3. Print window appears and then you specify the PDF converter as the desired printer (even if it’s already a PDF or PDF sort of file)

    I just did this using the latest Firefox. It took some moments to work through the “conversion” as the file was 5mb to begin with and it turned out a 111mb file. Not a perfect solution and the “print” (conversion) appeared to hang just after it started but I just let it keep cooking and within 5 minutes the “Completed” window popped up and indeed I had what looks exactly the same but is ~20 times bigger in file size – go figure. But it something I need immediately and now I have something I can use immediately.

  • http://www.masetty.com Masetty Technologies

    Hey thanks dude! your article helped me to save flash file from old archives of mt website.

  • Pingback: Hearty» Blog Archive » how to download pictures off the internet

  • Thinksaurabh

    Save the swf files as PDF.

    1. download cutepdf converter

    2. Control Panel – Administrative Tools – Services – turn on (print spooler)

    3. Print files using cutepdf in printer option (size approx 30mb)

  • vijay

    very good tutorial.

  • games bomb

    Save Flash Games on your your Computer Desktop (or Flash videos)
    step by step

    http://www.gamesbomb.com/archives/abc/how-save-flash.html

  • J.K.Sharda

    very,very thanks.It was my problem,Now it has been solved.