Have you ever been annoyed that services like Muxtape (which is currently unavailable, thanks to the RIAA), Favtape or other playlist-based music sites don't let you download songs? The better sites offer a link to purchase the songs through the iTunes Store or Amazon.com, but the rest just stream the music. And once the player moves on to the next song, that song is gone.
Or is it? Most services like the ones above rely on Flash or JavaScript to obfuscate URLs and make it difficult, though not impossible, to download the actual files.
In this guide, we'll show you how you can grab just about any file you want by exploring your browser's cache.
NOTE: Depending on the copyright applied to the song you're downloading, using this technique may violate the copyright of the content owner. This wiki article is not intended as legal advice and is for educational purposes only.
Why this works
When you stream music content from a site, your browser has to download the file and store it for playback. There are ways the site can prevent your browser from caching the file, but most sites don't bother with such techniques since most people don't know how to perform this hack we're going to show you.
The trick is to find the temporarily stored song file in your browser's cache and then copy it to a more permanent location on your hard drive. To show you how this works we'll use Seeqpod as an example, but the same technique will work for similar sites (and other kinds of files -- like video -- as well).
Using Firefox
The first thing we need to do if find out where Firefox stores its cache.
To access the Firefox cache data, open a new tab and type about:cache into the location bar. That will load a page that gives you all sorts of info about your cache. Look for the "Disk cache device" header and then find the Cache Directory path.
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| Mac users, set up your Finder window in List view and sort by Date Modified (click for larger). |
Using Mac's Finder or Windows Explorer, open that folder and sort the contents by date and time. While the file names are randomly generated, we can guess which files we're looking for by their size and the times they were created, so make sure you can see both columns in your Finder/Explorer window.
Now point your browser to Seeqpod and search for a song you want to download. Load the song in Seeqpod's Flash player and wait for it to finish loading (watch the gray progress bar). Once the file is loaded in memory, head back to your Firefox cache folder and look for the new file. You may have to refresh the view in Finder/Explorer.
It might take a little trial and error, but look for recently created cache files in the 3-6 MB range and drag them over to your desktop. Add a .mp3 extension to the file and you now have a copy of the song.
There are also different add-on to Firefox that can help you doing this whithout the need to go and look at the cache files directly:
quite old but with a lot of users: Video DownloadHelper brand new, it's still experimental but it's also the best I tried: CarCastWebRecorder
Using Internet Explorer
If IE is more your bag, fear not, the process is the same. In fact, it's even a little bit easier.
Once the Seeqpod track has finished loading, open up Tools > Internet Options. In the Internet Options panel, look for the Temporary Internet Files section and click "Settings." That will bring up a new panel where you can click the "View files" button.
That should open a new Window with a list of cache files. Just look for the ones with the .mp3 extension and then copy and paste the file over your desktop.
Using Safari
Safari has a handy little activity monitor that shows you all files loaded on a particular site. Open it up by going to Window > Activity. This brings up a window with a heading for each site you have loaded.
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| The file's status stands out if you look for it while it's still loading (click for larger). |
Collapse all the sites you don't care about to make it easier to find your file. It's usually easiest to find the file you want if you look for it while it's still loading, since the status column will be changing for that file only.
On a Mac, option-double-click the file to download it. On Windows, double-clicking brings up a dialogue that gives you the option of downloading the file.
Using File2hd
Even though the browser methods are great there is a nifty online tool to help you achieve the same results without having to search for hidden files and whatnot: [visit File2hd]
The output is a list of files which you can directly download on your desktop. Here I'd recommend using the "save link as" options while right clicking on the link.
Using StationRipper
While StationRipper is more known for recording of old-style internet radio streams, the latest incarnation of this windows-only software will record music from streaming music sites. It specifically knows about Pandora.com, Slacker.com, and AOL Radio, but can also handle most other web-based music sites (even though it will only correctly name the tracks and download album art for sites it knows about). With this tool, it only picks up the song files, and will name the song file with the band and track name.
Conclusion
Once you have the MP3 files on your desktop, just add them to your favorite music software ( iPod Transfer For Mac or For Windows), upload them to your iPod or other music player and enjoy.
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