Why Keep Local Copies

Schools and companies tend to switch off Moodle accounts at the end of a term, a degree or a training program, usually without warning. Recordings and handouts disappear along with the login. Moodle Downloader lets you pull that material down while you still have access, building an archive that outlasts graduation or a deactivated account and that you can study from offline before exams, and it does the work inside your browser, so what you study isn't reported to any outside server.

What Gets Picked Up

Open a course page and the extension scans it on its own. It looks for:

• Lecture videos embedded through Kaltura or Panopto, plus videos uploaded directly to Moodle
• Files the course offers for download, such as PDFs, documents and archives
• Other linked resources on the page

Video is written as MP4 at whatever quality it was uploaded in. Filenames follow the course layout, so lectures stay sorted by topic.

Detection relies on Moodle's underlying page structure, not on a school's theme. Moodle 3.x and 4.x sites on any host and with any custom setup are covered, and you don't have to configure anything for your institution's address. Supported region: Worldwide, for any Moodle deployment.

Saving a Course

After installing, verify your email to activate the extension, then log in to your Moodle site as you normally would. On a course page you can take lectures one at a time or queue a whole section and let the batch run unattended. If the connection drops partway, the download is retried and resumed rather than restarted from zero, so a flaky network doesn't mean babysitting the queue. Recordings from Zoom or Teams count as long as they were embedded or attached in Moodle itself.

Where It Runs and What It Skips

It runs in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave and Opera on Windows, macOS and Linux. There is no version for Safari, and phone or tablet browsers can't use it either.

Limits worth knowing:

• You must be enrolled in the course and signed in to that Moodle site in the browser.
• Resolution can't exceed what was originally uploaded.
• DRM-protected video, embedded or otherwise, can't be captured.
• Live streams can't be grabbed while they are running; the recording becomes available once the session ends.
• Content inside the Moodle mobile app is out of reach.
• A few heavily customized Moodle installs may need an extension update before they work.

Permissions Explained

• downloads: stores recordings and course files on your machine.
• activeTab: lets the extension tell that the current tab is a Moodle course and spot its embedded players.
• storage: keeps track, on your device, of where the queue is, which quality you picked and which courses were detected.
• scripting: inspects the page markup to locate players and downloadable resources.
• host_permissions: requested per institution on first use, so the extension can reach that site's course content and the sources behind its players.

FAQ

My school runs its own customized Moodle; will this still find lectures?

Yes for any standard installation, whoever hosts it and whichever version it runs. The extension works from Moodle's own page architecture rather than the visual theme.

Zoom or Teams recordings were posted to my course. Can I save them?

Yes, when Moodle shows the recording in an embedded player or offers it as a file attachment on the course. When the course only links out to another platform, you may have to download it from that platform directly.

Are quizzes, forums or assignments downloadable?

No. The focus is videos and files. Quizzes, forums, wikis and submission forms are interactive pages the browser draws on screen, so there's nothing to save as a file.

Does my institution see that I'm using it?

It runs within your existing logged-in session and fetches content from addresses you can already reach as a student. It makes no unusual API calls and produces no abnormal traffic.

Can it save content from the Moodle app on my phone?

No. It is a desktop extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge and works only through the Moodle website, not the mobile app.

Is this legal?

DISCLAIMER: We are not attorneys and do not offer legal advice. Laws vary by country and platform. For any legal question please consult a qualified legal professional.

We give you full control over download speeds because we believe users should decide how they use their software.

That said, here are a few widely accepted best practices for safe, responsible downloading:

• Only download content you created, own, or have explicit permission from the rights holder to access.

• Protect your personal data by respecting platform rules and rate limits with reasonable download speeds to avoid automated abuse systems putting your account at risk.

• Protect your privacy by using a reputable VPN for IP protection before initiating downloads — this is the VPN we recommend & use.