Facebook: Here's how to download a video to your phone or computer

With 2.9 billion users, Facebook is by far the most used social network in the world, ahead of YouTube (2.5 billion) and Instagram (2 billion). While Instagram and YouTube specialised in images, Facebook is a mixed social network where you can find all kinds of content and video is inevitably one of them. Like most social networks, Facebook does not allow you to download videos posted on its site directly. You have to use third-party tools. Here's how you can do that.

Downloading public or private Facebook videos

To download videos from Facebook onto a computer, we recommend you go to sites such as SaveFrom.net or Downvids. These two sites are quite similar. In fact, to obtain your video, they download it from its URL. Here are the steps to do this:

1. Make sure you are logged in on Facebook
2. Go to the 'Watch' tab which contains all the video content posted on Facebook by the pages you like/follow, you can also go directly to the pages concerned
3. On the video post, click on the three dots at the top right
4. Choose 'Copy Link'.
5. Go to SaveFrom.net or Downvids
6. Paste the link to your video into the corresponding box
7. Click on download if the download does not start automatically

That's it, you've got your video, all you have to do is repeat this procedure to get more Facebook videos.

Note that Android smartphone users can do this procedure. They just need to go through the browser version of Facebook to access the options for copying the video link.

Downloading Facebook videos with other tools

The sites, SaveFrom.net and Downvids, are not the only ones that allow anyone to download videos from Facebook. In fact, it is possible to do so without using a site but with an extension or an application.

Downloading with an extension

From Chrome or Firefox, you can download an extension that will greatly help you download Facebook videos: DownloadHelper. It works very simply, but note that you will also need to download the extension application directly onto your device, which will be used to download the videos.

Here's how it works:

1. When you are on a Facebook video post, click on the extension normally placed in the top right corner of your browser window
2. Video DownloadHelper will then show you the content that can be downloaded from the URL you are on
3. All you have to do is choose what you want to download
4. Among the options available, you can also convert the video into a particular format so that it can also be played on a smartphone for example
5. All you have to do is wait until your download is complete
6. Your video is, by default, in the 'dwhelper' folder on your computer

Download with an application

Here, we invite you to download the 4K Video Downloader software that you can find by following this link. A bit like the sites mentioned in the first part, you just need the URL to download your video, but the application offers you a bit more than just downloading the media. Indeed, from the application, you can choose several output resolutions, but also choose only the sound of the video for example.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Get the link of the Facebook video
2. Paste this URL into the 4K Video Downloader application
3. Choose your resolution and whether you want to keep only the sound or the video
4. Click on download

You have your video!

Please note that this is a free version of the software, so you will be limited to 30 downloads per day, which is quite a lot. The paid version starts at 12€/year.

This article was translated from Gentside FR.

Read more:

⋙ Twitter: Here's how to download a video to your phone or computer

⋙ Facebook could have more dead users than alive by 2070, study shows

⋙ Facebook is being sued for allegedly using a loophole to track user data on iOS