A private video — shared with friends, posted in a private group, or on a profile only some people can see — cannot be downloaded from its link. Facebook shows it only to accounts that are 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, and the box above can read it. 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, 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 a quality and download the MP4.
In Safari on a Mac, turn on the developer features first, under Settings and then Advanced, or the shortcut does nothing.
On an Android phone
Chrome for Android can show a page’s 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.
Browsers on iPhone and iPad cannot show page source at all, so for those videos use a computer.
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 tool’s only request 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, 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. 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 this works for
Any video you can already play on Facebook: posts shared with friends or with a custom list, videos in groups you belong to, and videos on profiles that let you see them. 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 has to end and be published before there is a file to find. For a Story, the Story downloader is simpler, and a public video only needs its link, pasted into the main downloader.
When no video is found
Usually the copied text is not the whole page source. Check that you copied from the source view rather than from the video page itself, and that you selected everything. The video must be open on its own page: the source of your news feed or of a profile lists other videos, or none. If the source came from Facebook’s mobile site, try a computer. And because the file links inside a page source stop working after a while, copy a fresh one if an older copy fails.
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.