NCapture (NVivo 14 Mac)

NCapture (Chrome) captures web pages, social media, and YouTube into NVivo as PDFs, datasets, videos, or images with metadata.

Apr 1, 2026
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NCapture (NVivo 14 Mac)

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Social media data (NVivo 14 Mac)

NCapture (NVivo 14 Mac)

NCapture is a free web-browser extension for Chrome that enables you to gather web content to import into NVivo.

Most web pages can be captured as PDFs. You can also capture some pages from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as datasets, videos and pictures. NCapture files (.nvcx) contain your captured content as well as the URLs, capture times and any additional information such as a descriptions, memos and coding that you specified at the time of capture.

Some captures from social media sites produce multiple files once imported into NVivo. For example, Facebook content can contain an NVivo dataset as well as pictures. See Social media data (NVivo 14 Mac)

When capturing from Facebook or Twitter for the first time you will need to authorize NCapture. Authorize NCapture

Depending on your version of NVivo, some types of captured content cannot be imported into your project. NCapture compatibility

Capturing content with NCapture

In your browser, open the content that you want to capture.
Click the NCapture button at the top of your browser.

ui-ncapture-dialog

a Select a capture type. Depending on the type of content that you are viewing you will see different capture options. Capture options

b Review and optionally change the file name.

c You can enter a short description or a memo:

The description becomes one of the file's properties within NVivo.
The memo you enter becomes a linked memo when the file is imported.

dOptionally, enter one or more codes ('nodes' in previous versions of NVivo) to code the content to. When you import the content into NVivo, the entire file is coded to these.

If you enter a code that does not exist in your project—or incorrectly type the name—a new code is created.
If coding to an existing code, enter the hierarchical code name—for example, economy\tourism.

e Click Capture. The captured content is saved as an NCapture file (.nvcx) which you can import into your NVivo project.

In NCapture for Chrome, the NCapture file is saved to Chrome's download location. By default this is your Downloads folder.
In NCapture for Chrome you can stop a capture from the capture progress page.

Importing an NCapture file into NVivo

On the Import tab in the ribbon, click NCapture.
Select the capture files that you want to import.
Click Import. The NCapture files are imported into the current folder location in your project.

Datasets from the same source location, taken at different times, are merged. Gather data over time

Once imported your files are automatically classified and the URL and access date added as attributes. PDFs and Facebook and Twitter datasets are assigned to the 'Reference' classification.

Capture options

Depending on the type of web page you are on you get different capture options.

Web pages

Standard web pages can only be captured as a PDF. Text, images and hyperlinks are captured. Other content such as Flash media and embedded audio and videos are not captured. Capturing the main article as a PDF discards some of the formatting and only captures the main article on the page. Capturing the entire web page as a PDF tries to preserve the original format of the page, including advertisements, navigation menus and links to other articles.

When you capture a Web Page as PDF:

The content including text, images, hyperlinks and layout is collected into an NCapture file.
The browser width at the time of capture affects the size of the PDF in NVivo. NVivo chooses the page size and orientation that best fits the content. You may want to experiment to find the browser width that produces the best results when you import the content into NVivo.

When you capture an Article as PDF:

The main article including text, images and hyperlinks within the body of the text are collected into an NCapture file. Other types of content—for example, advertisements and links to other articles are removed.
There are a number of benefits when you work with the imported content in NVivo—for example, word frequency queries are not contaminated by the advertisements and the file size is smaller.

Online PDFs

The entire PDF is captured in an NCapture file and becomes a PDF file in NVivo

Facebook

All Facebook content can be captured as PDFs, but Facebook "Pages" and Groups (public, closed, or secret) can be captured as datasets.

NOTE To capture datasets from a group a Facebook group admin must add the 'NCapture for NVivo' app to the group, in the Facebook group settings (see Facebook Help topic for instructions).

When you capture Posts as Dataset:

The first time you capture you will be prompted to authorize NCapture. Authorize NCapture
You generally get more than just the posts that were visible on the page, but may occasionally get less. This is determined by Facebook, depending on the number of posts available and privacy settings of the posting user.
Facebook limits the number of captures in a given time. You are unlikely to ever reach this high limit, but if you do, wait an hour then continue.

Twitter

All Twitter content can be captured as a PDF, but search results, user streams and lists can also be captured as datasets.

When capturing as a dataset:

The first time you capture, you will be prompted to authorize NCapture. Authorize NCapture
The number of Tweets that you can capture is determined by Twitter. The exact number may vary depending on the number of Tweets available, privacy settings of the posting user, and age of the Tweet. You might not be able to capture all of the Tweets you can see in your browser, or might receive more Tweets than you are expecting.
Information about the author of the Tweet—for example, Location and Number of Followers—is also included.
When you capture including Retweets, information is automatically added to the start of the Tweet to identify the original author. Due to the 280 character limit in Twitter, this can sometimes mean that text at the end of the Tweet is cut off.
When searching on Twitter you have the option to filter the results based on criteria such as Top or Latest tweets. When capturing as a dataset all tweets are captured regardless of the selected option.

YouTube

NVivo for Mac does not support import ofYouTube videos. You can capture the web page as a PDF for analysis in NVivo.

NCapture compatibility

NVivo for Mac

NCapture is supported from NVivo version 10.1 onwards, with some exceptions:

NVivo 10 for Mac does not support Facebook or Twitter content captured as datasets. This can be captured as PDFs instead.
You cannot import YouTube videos or comments as datasets. These can be captured as PDFs instead.

NVivo for Windows

NCapture is supported from NVivo 10 onwards, with some exceptions:

You need to be running NVivo 10 SP2 or later to import YouTube videos or comments as datasets.
NVivo 11 Starter for Windows is not compatible with any NCapture content.

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