How to save video on facebook to your phone

Facebook is booming with videos: educational videos teaching you to garden or code, those addicting and useless 5-minute craft videos, the very visibly faked videos of people catching their partners cheating on them, aliens caught on film. If there is a craving for content, that content is likely on Facebook in video form.

If you want to share that video, you can copy the link and send it to a friend, or DM it to them through the app. You can save the video, but that doesn’t actually save the video to your phone or computer's hard drive — instead, it adds the video to your saved video bookmarks so you can find it easier and watch it later on Facebook. Sometimes, though, a video is simply too brilliant or helpful to not have saved onto your phone. Maybe you want to show a parent, or access it when you’re offline. In order to download a video from Facebook, you’ll have to follow through with a few steps.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that you should hesitate before downloading just any video. You don’t want to download copyrighted content, and if you want to download a friends’ privately uploaded video on Facebook, you may just want to ask them if it’s OK before you go through the trouble of downloading. Hey, maybe they’ll just send it to you.

1. Pick a video

A screenshot of the 5-minute crafts video on Facebook we want to download. Credit: SCREENSHOT / FACEBOOK

Find a video you want to save.

2. Copy the link

You'll need to copy the link of the Facebook video in order to download it. Credit: Screenshot / facebook

Click the three dots at the top right corner of the video, and then copy the link.

3. Paste that link into a new tab

Once you copy that link, paste it into a new tab. Credit: SCREENSHOT / FACEBOOK

Paste the link you copied into a new tab to navigate to that site.

4. Delete "www" in the url and change it to "mbasic."

You'll have to edit your url to go to a very old-school version of Facebook, now. Credit: SCREENSHOT:FACEBOOK

This is what it should look like when you change "www" to "mbasic" in your browser. Credit: SCREENSHOT / FACEBOOK

In the link, delete the "www" and change it to "mbasic." This will turn your site into a very retro version of Facebook.

5. Open the video in a new tab

A screenshot of the Facebook video as a standalone on a page. Credit: SCREENSHOT / FACEBOOK

This will now be a single video on a black screen.

6. Right click, and save the video

Now you've done it! All that's left is saving the video from Facebook onto your device. Credit: screenshot: facebook

Right click on the video, click save as, and boom! You’re done.

There is an easier way, and it’s how you can also save it on a mobile device. You can download a video from Facebook in the same way you would download a video from Twitter: by copying the share link, and pasting that link into a third-party website designed to do all of that work for you. Once you have the tweet link copied, you'll want to go to a website like FB Down. There, you'll paste the copied link and click download. You can also download a third-party app like the Friendly for Facebook app, which gives the Facebook app extra features, including a downloading option.

If all else fails, you can always record your screen, play the video, and save that video to your phone or desktop that way. Screen recording is fairly simple, but it might not give you the same quality as saving the Facebook video independently.

This article explains how to download any video from Facebook to watch on your device anytime, without internet access. These instructions work on both a computer or a mobile device.

How to Save a Video That You Posted on Facebook

Media uploaded to Facebook can serve as a backup if you lose the original file. To retrieve a video from Facebook that you uploaded:

1. Sign in to Facebook on your laptop or desktop computer and go to your profile page.

2. Go to the header menu and hover the cursor over More.

3. Select Videos.

   If you don't see this option, select Manage Sections from the More menu, and enable Videos.

   
   

4. In the Videos pane, select Your Videos.

5. Hover over the video you want to download, then select the pencil icon located in the upper-right corner of the image.

6. Select Download SD (standard definition) or Download HD (high-definition).

   
   

7. The video appears in a new screen. Select the three vertical dots (located in the lower-right corner of the video player), then choose Download. The file downloads to your computer.

How to Save a Video That Someone Else Posted on Facebook

If a video appears in your Facebook timeline after being posted by a friend, family member, company, or other entity, download it as an MP4 file and store it locally for future use. But first, you must trick Facebook into thinking that you're viewing the social media site on a mobile device, an unconventional but necessary workaround. The following steps work for the majority of Facebook videos, including those originally recorded using Facebook Live, in most major web browsers.

1. Go to the video that you wish to download, then right-click anywhere within the player.

2. Select Show video URL. Or, select Copy video URL at current time, then skip to step 4.

   
   

3. Click the URL to highlight it, then right-click and select Copy. You can also use the Ctrl+C or Command+C shortcut on the keyboard.

4. Clear the browser address bar and paste the URL.

5. Edit the URL. Replace www with m. The front portion of the URL should now read m.facebook.com instead of www.facebook.com. Press Enter to load the new address.

   
   

6. In Microsoft Edge, select Save to download the video file to your default location. In Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, right-click anywhere on the video and select Inspect.

7. Press Play, then select the arrow icon (located in the upper-left corner of the inspection window).

8. Select the video to focus on it.

9. In the Elements window, right-click the URL and select Copy link address. If you don't see that option, double-click the area where you see the video's URL so that it's highlighted, and then copy the URL using the Ctrl+C or Command+C keyboard shortcut.

   
   

10. Paste the new URL into a new, empty browser window and press Enter.

11. The video will play in a smaller window. Select the three vertical dots that are located in the lower-right corner of the screen.

12. Select Download. The video downloads as an mp4 file to your computer.

How to Save a Video From Facebook on an iOS or Android Device

To download someone else's video to your phone or tablet, you'll need to download a third-party app such as Friendly For Facebook. Friendly adds workflow and usability features to Facebook, including an option to download any video posted to the social network.

The instructions to download Facebook video to a phone or tablet is the same for both iOS and Android.

After locating the video that you'd like to save to your device, tap the play button. Once the video begins to play, tap anywhere on the screen to see playback and menu information. Select the Cloud icon that's located in the lower-right corner of the screen. A menu will appear that gives you the option to download the video to your mobile device.

On Android, tapping the Cloud icon instantly downloads the video.

Friendly will request access to your photos and other media files. Grant access to download any video from Facebook.

How to Find Saved Posts on Facebook

FAQ

• How do I delete videos on Facebook?

  To delete a video you posted on Facebook, navigate to your profile and select Videos. Find the video you want to remove and select Edit (pencil icon). Next, select Delete Video > Delete. Note that if you shared someone else's video, you can delete your post, but the original video will remain.

• How do I upload videos on Facebook?

  To post a video on Facebook, select What's on your mind? Next, select the photo/video icon and find the video you want to post. Select it, set your audience visibility, and choose Post. On the app, you can also select the camera icon to create a video to post.

• How do I stop videos from automatically playing on Facebook?

  To turn off Autoplay on Facebook, navigate to Facebook in a browser and choose your profile picture > Settings & Privacy > Settings > Videos > turn off Auto-Play Videos.