Flash might be a hated technology; it is still one of the most used ways to let users play videos or games within web browsers. A Getting Geek reader asked me how he can extract flash files on his computer.
Hey, Saurabh!
I was playing a flash game online, and I really liked the music running in the background. I wanted to listen to the music clip only, but I couldn’t because some other in-game sound effects were also being played in the background.
Is there a way I can extract the music from an SWF File?
Abhay
Now, before we start talking about how you can extract flash files, you should keep in mind that the SWF files/games you are trying to extract may be copyrighted.
Extracting SWF Files
Flash files have a .SWF file extension, and while it is a dying tech, it is still a widely used format to distribute browser games and – in many cases – videos online.
SWF files contain all visual elements and sound files. Images are usually in. JPG or .PNG format (you can read the difference between them here) and sound files are usually in .WAV, .MP3 or .OGG format.
You can use some tools to extract SWF/Flash files on your computer locally, but, to do that, you will need to download the SWF file locally.
How you can download flash files locally
If you are on Google Chrome, simply go to the Chrome Extension Store and download and install Flash Video Downloader. Once you have done it, open the page which contains the Flash game or flash file that you want to download.
Once you are on the page, from the toolbar, click on the Flash Video Downloader icon.
Here, you will be able to see all the flash elements from the page (these have .swf at their end) to download a flash file; simple hit the big-blue download button.
Extracting the flash files
You can find many applications that can extract flash files, however, most of them are not free. Here are two of the most popular and I am sure that they will get the job done.
Fortop SWF Resources Extractor
The Fortop SWF Extractor is free to download application; you can install the app from the website and use it to extract any (or even all) files contained within SWF files. To do that, just open the application and drag the downloaded flash files to the software window, then you can extract any file by selecting it and then clicking the extract button on the toolbar.
The application includes a small preview of the flash file on the sidebar, and you can select and preview files before extracting them.
GlobFx SWF Extractor
The GlobFx SWF Extractor looks slightly dated and feature-less then Fortop’s offering, but once you have bought the full version, it does its job well. Unlike Fortop SWF Extractor, with this one, you can see an enlarged preview of photos without first extracting them.
In the above two, I would recommend you to install the first one if you do not plan the buy the full version as it the latter adds a bit too annoying watermarks on extracted images.
Do you know any other way of extracting SWF files? Share with us in the comments below.
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