How do I download videos from Facebook?

Question

I have a video on Facebook that I'd like to share with people outside Facebook, but I don't have the original video file.

How can I download the Facebook video to put it on public web sites, like YouTube, so that others can view the video?

Answer 1

As far as Facebook, the web site, goes -- you can't. They don't provide any way to download the videos via the Facebook website that I know of.

One alternative is to use browser extensions that allow you to download videos from, in fact, any web page:

Download Helper (Firefox)

DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites. Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. For instance, if you go to a YouTube page, you'll be able to download the video directly on your file system. It also works with MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and others.

FVD Video Downloader (Chrome)

FVD Video Downloader – a browser plugin that allows you to download video and audio files from almost any page for further viewing on your computer. It supports a huge selection of sites including Facebook, Vkontakte, Vimeo, Veoh, Blip, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Break as well as thousands of others. It is very easy to operate the plugin – if there’s a downloadable video available on the page that you are viewing, the arrow button in your browser changes its color to blue. You can download the video by clicking on this button. After that you can play it on your computer or convert it into another format for further viewing on other devices.

Note that for political reasons the FVD downloader won't work on YouTube, because the official Google Chrome add-in repository policies prevent it.

If you don't use Firefox or Chrome

First, try the Facebook Video Downloader User Script. User scripts work in most common browsers now. Click the big green "Install" button on the upper right of the userscripts.org page to set it up.

Creates a download link, link is added to the description box of the video. NOTE: You need to open the link in a new tab as it does not support theater mode.

Another alternative, if you are using Windows, is software that pulls the video files out of the browser cache like VideoCacheView.

You can do the same thing manually if you navigate to where the browser cache files are on your OS / Browser, and sort by filesize.

Answer 2

using the Google Chrome browser

1. log in to your Facebook account
2. go to the video you want to download (open it in a new tab)
3. click CTRL (Cmd for mac) + shift + C on your keyboard
4. elements will show, go to network tab
5. play the video and let it finish playing
6. locate the .mp4 file (you will see it under the type)
7. open it in a new tab
8. right click and click save as

Here are the tutorials on how to download a video on Facebook:
YouTube: download video from Facebook
Tutorial: Step by step guide to download Facebook video

Answer 3

There is a very easy way which should work in all browsers.

Step 1: Go to the page with the video.

You can press the timestamp at the top of a post to go to just that post.

Step 2: Replace "www." in the url with "mbasic."

For example, https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=352384258268258&permPage=1 should become https://mbasic.facebook.com/video.php?v=352384258268258&permPage=1. This will go to the mobile version of the web page.

Step 3: Right click the video and press "Save link as..."

There should be a thumbnail of the video in the post. This will link directly to the video.

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This only works for videos which are actually uploaded to Facebook. For Youtube videos, click the title of the video and follow the instructions at How do I download a YouTube video?