Downloading Your Uploaded Media

Chris_Hofer
Community Coach
Community Coach
‎11-01-2018 12:43 PM
3
5222

I wasn't really sure how to title this blog...so rather than trying to hash out a fancy title, let's just get to the meat of this posting...

I recently helped one of our full time faculty who had used the "Record/Upload Media" tool (How do I upload an audio file using the Rich Content Editor as an instructor?) in the RCE to upload an audio recording of a class lecture that she recorded on a digital audio recording device.  After uploading the recording to her class, the instructor had then deleted the file from the device but then realized she needed to upload the audio file into a different course.  She was trying to figure out how she could download the audio file from the first course to re-upload into her other course.  The audio file wasn't in her "Files" area of the course, so that wasn't a possibility to retrieve it there.  I called the folks at the Canvas Help Desk for assistance.  While speaking with a technician, I discovered how to do this...so I thought I'd share with the Community...

These steps are current as of Google Chrome v.69.  These directions also assume you have inserted an audio recording into your course via the "Record/Upload Media" tool in the RCE (Rich Content Editor).
  1. View the content page as a student would, and click the blue "Play" button.
    Audio Recording
  2. The audio player controls change into the interface shown below.  Click the "CC" button.
    Audio Recording 2
  3. Select the "Upload subtitles" option that appears.  You'll see the following screen:
    Audio Recording 3
  4. In Step 1: Copy this video url, there will be a super long URL with a bunch of random characters that will, more than likely, run off the side of the window (you should have a horizontal scroll bar to help you see the entire URL).  Even though you can't see all of it, you can still select the entire link.  (It may have a file extension of *.mp4 on it.)  Highlight the entire URL at this time, and then Ctrl+C (Cmd+C for Mac users) to copy the link to your clipboard.
  5. Open up a new browsing tab in Google Chrome, and paste the URL into the address bar using Ctrl+V (Cmd+V for Mac users).
  6. You'll see a new audio player interface as shown below.  Click on the kabob icon (three dots) on the right side of the player controls.
    Audio Recording 4
  7. Select the option to "Download".  This will download an audio file to your computer.  The file will contain many random characters and possibly a different file extension.  (In my case, it downloaded as a *.m4a audio file.)

You can then play this file on your computer or upload it to another course using the "Record/Upload Media" tool in the RCE.

If you don't want to download a copy of the audio file to insert into another course, there's another option for you as well.  Once you are in the new course, take the long link you harvested from Step #4 above and then use the "Insert/edit media" button in the RCE to paste that long link into the "Source" box of the "General" tab.  (The "Dimensions" will fill in automatically.)

Insert_edit media

If you do it this way, then students will see player controls similar to the screen shot I provided in Step #6.

Hoping that these instructions will be helpful to people.  🙂

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