How do I change the file type? FLV

Joannamaye

Registered
I found a similar post like this but I have a different problem.

http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/51631-how-do-you-change-file-type.html


Anyways, I'm new to Mac! So I'm trying to figure out how to change the file type for this supposedly FLV file. I used youtube downloader to get the video and it just saves it for me as a document that's named video.flv. With Windows, if you changed the name to .flv it would automatically become a FLV file type but I found out that it's not the same for Mac. How do I change the file type? I really want to convert it but it won't let me cuz it doesn't read it as a .flv file type.

Thanks!
 
You are asking the wrong question. You don't want to change the file type, you want a Flash Video player. Alternatively, you may get a converter that will convert your video into a different format. But do you really want to convert anything? There are applications available that not only download from YouTube, but also play the videos. You may find several here.
 
I think I am indeed asking the correct question. Well see, it's not a .flv file-- it's supposed to be one. It's a "document" file, a blank icon. Even if I had a Flash Video player, it wouldn't be able to play it because it's not a .flv file. How do I change the file type?

With Windows, I could just change the extension/name. For example:

It's saved as Video on my laptop right... I can just change it to Video.flv so that it would become a .flv file. BUT-- How do I do that with Mac?
 
OK, so you just want to change the extension. You can do so by changing the file name

or

right click the icon » Choose Get Info » Under Name & Extension » change extension to .flv
 
Mac OS X doesn't designate what a file works with from the extension like Windows does. It only resorts to that method when it finds no other way of associating a file to an app.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_association#Mac_OS

This link shows how you can change the association of a file to an application.
http://www.silverspider.com/2004/change-file-associations-in-os-x/

It talks about 10.3 and 10.4, but I imagine it should apply to 10.5 as well.

EDIT:
Here's one that talks about changing file associations in Leopard.
http://dotmac.rationalmind.net/2008/11/change-file-associations-in-os-x/
 
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