Facebook, like other websites with the option to view content online, doesn’t encourage video downloads. This is a violation of the rules for using a social network. In addition, most of the published videos are copyrighted and have their own owners, who will definitely be against this kind of distribution.
Private Facebook videos are a different matter. Because they are private, programs to download public Facebook videos don’t work. Here is how to download a private Facebook video in different ways.
Is it YouTube or Facebook video
First, you need to find out if the video you want is uploaded directly to Facebook. Users often post links to videos from YouTube or other video services. You can play them on the Facebook page with your own YouTube Player, but they are still on YouTube’s servers. You can recognize such videos by a thumbnail preview image, for example. In this case, you can try to download the free apps, which allow you to download videos from YouTube.
How to download private Facebook video using FBDown
Many sites use the same trick to upload private Facebook videos. They almost always use a copy of the source code of the Facebook video and paste it somewhere in the tool. FBDown is just one of those services. With it, you can absolutely free download the necessary video from Facebook. The website has two separate tools. One is for uploading public Facebook videos and the other is for uploading private Facebook videos. If you want to download a private Facebook video using FBDown, you have to follow these steps:
- First of all, open the FBDown website in your web browser.
- Then, open Facebook website in a new tab and sign in to your personal account.
- Go to the page of the video you want to download and press “Ctrl + U” if you are using Windows, or “Command + Option + U” if you are using macOS. This will show you the source code of the web page.
- After that, copy the source code into the text box on FBDown website and click “Download”.
You have also to be aware that you have to visit the video’s unique URL. The process will not work if you copy the source code from your news feed, a profile page, or any other Facebook page where you can see an appropriate video.
How to download private Facebook video using FBDownloader
If you want to use an alternative to FBDown, FBDownloader is most likely the right one for you. The names are definitely similar, but they are two different websites. FBDownloader offers the same options as a previous website. The procedure for downloading a private video from Facebook is absolutely identical. All you have to do is to copy and paste the video page source code into the special text box on the FBDownloader website. After that, just click the “Download” button to let the website tool do its work.
After a couple of minutes, the processing will be complete. Finally, you have to right-click on the video’s thumbnail, choose “Save As” and name the file.
