This Facebook private video downloader saves a video you can already watch but cannot download from its link: one shared with friends, posted in a private group or set to Only me. Facebook shows such a video only to accounts allowed to see it, and this site never asks for your login. Your own browser, though, is already signed in. It can hand over the page source, the box above reads it, and the whole search happens on your device.
How to download a private Facebook video on a computer
- Open the video on Facebook while you are logged in, on its own page, and make sure it plays.
- Open the page source: press Ctrl+U on Windows or Linux, or Option+Command+U on a Mac. A new tab shows the page’s code.
- Select everything with Ctrl+A (Command+A on a Mac) and copy it with Ctrl+C (Command+C).
- Paste it into the box above and press Find video, then choose HD or SD and download the MP4.
The code is long, often a few megabytes, so give the paste a second to finish before you press the button.
Opening the page source in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari
- Chrome and Edge: Ctrl+U, or Option+Command+U on a Mac. You can also right-click an empty part of the page and choose View page source.
- Firefox: Ctrl+U, or Command+U on a Mac, or right-click and choose View Page Source.
- Safari on a Mac: first open Settings, then Advanced, and turn on Show features for web developers. After that, Option+Command+U shows the source; until then the shortcut does nothing.
Whichever browser you use, copy from the source tab, not from the video page itself: the text you see on Facebook is not the code the tool needs.
On an Android phone
Chrome for Android can show a page source too. Open the video, tap the address bar, type view-source: in front of the address and open it. Press and hold the code, choose Select all and Copy, then paste it above. Facebook’s mobile site does not always include the HD file, so a computer usually gives the better result.
On an iPhone or iPad
Browsers on iPhone and iPad cannot show a page source at all, so this is the one device where the private video downloader cannot be used on its own. Open the same video on a computer, or in Chrome on an Android phone, and copy the source there. If the video is your own, the easier routes are below.
Nothing you paste leaves your device
A page source is not a harmless document: it contains your name, your friends’ names and codes tied to your Facebook session. That is why the tool never sends it anywhere. The search for the video file runs in your browser, inside this page, and the only request that follows is your download, which goes straight to Facebook’s servers. Nothing you paste is stored, logged or uploaded here, and when you close the tab it is gone.
For the same reason, do not paste a page source into a site that sends it to a server, never hand over your Facebook cookies, and never type your Facebook password anywhere except Facebook.
Why a link alone cannot work
A website’s server sees Facebook the way a stranger does, signed out, so it cannot open a video that Facebook shows only to you, whatever it claims. A service that promises private videos from a link alone is either asking for your password or not telling the truth, and one that asks you to install an app or a browser extension wants far more access than a download needs. Your browser can open the video because it is signed in as you, so the safe approach is to let it fetch the page and pass on only the part that matters.
Which private videos it can save
Any video you can already play on Facebook: posts shared with friends or a custom list, videos in groups you belong to, videos on profiles that let you see them, your own Only me videos and Reels, and the replay of a Live broadcast once it has ended. It does not get around anyone’s privacy settings: if a video does not play for you, its page source holds nothing to download.
A Live broadcast still in progress has no finished file yet. For a Story, the Story downloader is simpler, and a public video only needs its link, pasted into the main downloader.
What quality you get
The files listed are the same complete MP4s Facebook plays for you, with picture and sound together, usually one HD file of up to 720p and one smaller SD file. Nothing is re-encoded. Facebook keeps a 1080p copy of many videos only as separate picture and sound streams for its own player, never as one MP4, so a private video downloader that promises 1080p, 2K or 4K from Facebook is promising something it cannot hand over.
When no video is found
- Not the whole source. Copy from the source tab, select everything and paste it all.
- Not the video’s own page. The source of your news feed, a group or a profile lists other videos, or none. Open the video by itself first, for example by clicking its date.
- From the mobile site. If the source came from Facebook on a phone, try a computer.
- An old copy. The file links inside a page source stop working after a while, so copy a fresh source if an older one fails.
Your own private videos: easier ways
If you posted the video yourself, Facebook may offer its own download option on it, and Export your information in Accounts Center can export every video on your account at once. How to download your own Facebook videos walks through both, and this tool is there for anything they leave out.
Respect the people in the video
A private video was shared with a limited audience on purpose. Keeping a copy of one you appear in, or one a friend sent you, is ordinary. Posting it publicly, or passing it on beyond the people it was meant for, is not, and it can break the law and Facebook’s rules. Ask the person who posted it before you share it. Is it legal to download Facebook videos? explains where the line sits.