Saving video and sound

How to save a video

There are three ways, with the same choices:

• point at the video — a round button with an arrow appears in its top left corner;
• right-click the video and choose Download video…;
• click the Download video icon in the address bar: it appears when the page has something to download. With several videos, first pick one by its title.

The button's menu has Video, 1080p · ≈350 MB — the best quality, Sound, Video and sound — two files, the video with its sound and the sound alone, and Other quality with the rest. Sizes are approximate; when they cannot be known in advance, there are none.

While a file downloads, a ring with the percentage turns on the button, and the address bar icon shows the percentage. Clicking the button again cancels. Videos in a tab download one at a time: while one is going, Sverk answers A video is already downloading in this tab.

Sverk takes the video from the same servers the site shows it from. Nothing goes to Sverk's server.

What files you get

Sverk converts nothing. The video is saved as MP4 or WebM, depending on what the site serves, the sound as M4A or WebM. The files seek from any point, in the Windows player too. Sverk cannot turn the sound into MP3.

The file is named after the video's title on the page and its quality, such as “Title (1080p).mp4” or “Title.m4a”; without a title, after the site's address. Characters Windows does not allow in file names are replaced.

Files go to your usual downloads folder (Settings → Downloads → Location) and to the list of downloads, like any download. If Ask where to save each file before downloading is on, Sverk asks here too. More in Downloads.

If the site serves the video as a ready file, Sverk hands it straight to the downloads, and its progress is shown there, not on the button.

YouTube and players with no file

YouTube and some other players give out the video neither as a file nor as a playlist. Then Sverk records what the player receives: after your choice the video starts over, muted and sped up (four times on YouTube, slower if the network cannot keep up), and the player shows Downloading… 40% with a Cancel button. Until you choose, the player works as usual.

At the end the file goes to your downloads, and the player returns to the same place, volume and speed. Cancel, leaving the page or closing the tab stops the recording, and nothing is saved. If the player keeps picture and sound in different formats, the sound comes as a separate file next to the video.

A video that has never played sound stays paused in a background tab: its recording goes on when you come back to the tab.

What cannot be saved

• copy-protected video (DRM, encrypted streams): it has no button, and Download video… answers This video is protected and can't be downloaded;
• live streams: Live streams can't be downloaded yet;
• subtitles and whole playlists;
• anything in an Incognito window: there is no download there.

If Sverk found no video (the site changed its player), there is no button, and Download video… answers Nothing to download here. If the network drops, Sverk tries each piece three times, then says Download failed, and the icon shows Failed for five seconds; a partly downloaded file is not saved.

The download is part of Sverk Shield. If Off is chosen on the Ad blocking page, or Sverk Shield has no access to the site, there is no download on it: see the Sverk Shield blocker and site access.

The button on videos

The button appears on videos of at least 200 × 100 points, so not on small previews, and not in full screen. To remove it from all videos, choose Don't show the button on videos in its menu.

To bring it back, type chrome://sverk/appearance in the address bar and turn on Download button on videos. The address bar icon and Download video… in the right-click menu work without it.

Didn't find the answer?

Write to us at support@sverk.ai: what you did, what you expected to see and what you saw. Other topics are in the help contents.