Decoding facebook's blob video url

Question

I found blob:https://www.facebook.com/c7e5a634-2343-4464-a03e-4a1987301ca1 video source on Facebook's private group and I really can't download the video by entering the url nor am I able to decode. Is there any way to decode this?

<video height="274" width="476" preload="auto" style="" class="_ox1 _21y0 _1_d1" data-video-width="476" data-video-height="274" data-original-aspect-ratio="1.7387058423913" id="u_0_27" src="blob:https://www.facebook.com/dc89feae-5b46-4103-8ee9-da7d7630ca94"></video>

Pedroza

Answer 1

This method will get the video and its audio AS SEPARATE FILES. The downloaded video will have no sound, but you will be able to download its audio file and connect it to the video in some video editing program if you need to.

1. In Google Chrome, go to Facebook.

2. Open the Chrome Developer Tools (F12).

3. Go to the Network tab in the Developer Tools (it's at the top of the Developer Tools window)

4. Play the video you would like to download on Facebook. Let it play for a few seconds and look at the Network tab during that. Long strings of numbers will appear every couple of seconds.

5. Right click one of those strings, then go Copy>Copy link address

6. Paste (CTRL+V) the link you copied somewhere (eg Notepad) and remove "&bytestart=3684046&byteend=3862768" from the end.

   So I have a link like:

   https://scontent-waw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t66.18014-6/46772657_738781116188283_6399514850013601801_n.mp4?_nc_cat=107&efg=4yJ7ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6ImRhc2hfb2VwX2hxMl9mcmFnXzJfdmlkZW8ifQ%3D%3D&_nc_ht=scontent-waw1-xx&oh=91a5abdd5608768a05fd884773a45802&oe=5C29B042 &bytestart=3684046&byteend=3862768

   After you cut the bold part out, the link that points to the full .mp4 or .webm of the video is:

   https://scontent-waw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t66.18014-6/46772657_738781116188283_6399514850013601801_n.mp4?_nc_cat=107&efg=4yJ7ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6ImRhc2hfb2VwX2hxMl9mcmFnXzJfdmlkZW8ifQ%3D%3D&_nc_ht=scontent-waw1-xx&oh=91a5abdd5608768a05fd884773a45802&oe=5C29B042

7. Open the modified link, right click the video inside and select "Save video as..."

Sometimes, when you open the link you may get just the audio of the video instead of the video itself.
That's because Facebook downloads the audio and video separately. Just try repeating steps 5-7 with a different string of numbers till you get it right. Instructions to reduce the chance of accidentally picking an audio link are below.

If you need to download many videos and don't want to guess whether your link points to audio or video, type larger-than: 50k (or more) in the Filter field in the Network tab. You can also click the XHR button in Filters so it doesn't show non-video files like FB images.

Campy

For a high quality video, play the video in fullscreen before grabbing the link. – Whaleboat

Best of the best. Thank you!! I used this to download a video I attached in a comment! There was no way of downloading it, but this!! – Equipment

Sometimes, when you open the link you may get just the audio of the video instead of the video itself. That's because Facebook downloads the audio and video separately. This happens for me, what now? – Permute

@Prometheus I edited my answer. Pick a different string of numbers in the Network tab to copy the link from. – Campy

suprisingly i grabbed just the video alone no audio – Eliezer

@KrzysztofKrzeszewski Same here, no request contained both so far -- each time it's either audio or video. – Acrostic

I updated the answer to clarify what this solution does. – Campy

To merge the video and audio, you can use ffmpeg like that: ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.wav -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4. Reference: superuser.com/a/277667 – Cracy

This works in Firefox too. At least the video, I didn't try audio. – Depurative

This did not work for me in Chrome or Brave. On step 4, I didn't see a number string for an MP4, only JPEGs from elsewhere on the page. – Bealle

Answer 2

Another alternative that worked in Firefox in Feb 2021:

• Open the post's permalink
• Change the page's URL - replace www with m and load that
• Now use Inspector to navigate down to the div containing the video object - and the video URL will be a direct link
• Copy-paste that URL into your browser, or create an anchor link to that URL and load your link and right-click to save destination.

It downloads as mp4 including video and audio.

Update, 2 Jul 2021

When I followed my own steps today, pasting the mp4 URL returned a page giving the following error:

Bad URL timestamp

However, I still found a work-around.

Side note: One of the containing divs has ID mobile_injected_video_feed_pagelet.

Facebook now injects the video element when you hit the play button.

That VIDEO element contains the URL you need. The URL does contain "MP4" in the path.

What I did was:

• Open Inspector
• Hit "Play" on the video
• While the video is playing, find the VIDEO element and copy the URL from the VIDEO element
• Paste that into a new tab
• The new tab would show a smaller thumbnail of the video
• Right-click the thumbnail and save the media to your PC

You must hit play for the VIDEO element to appear in the page source.

I'm using Firefox but any browser with an inspector should work.

Allista

For some reason I forgot this trick. FYI happily it also works in Chrome. Thanks. – Zorine

Thank you! The easiest solution – Weighty

Hm.. Had to follow my own steps today, and now when I paste the MP4 link it comes back with "Bad URL timestamp". I find 8 instances of "mp4" in the page source. I haven't tested all yet. I do note one of the containing divs has ID "mobile_injected_video_feed_pagelet" - they might have changed their mobile approach to prevent access to the video file. Needs further investigation. – Allista

... and found a solution - added it to the answer itself. In a nutshell: open inspector, find the VIDEO element, start playing the video and then copy the URL from that VIDEO element. – Allista

nice & easy. Still working in 2022 – Communion

not working because is is a blob. – Sistrunk

Answer 3

You can download an FB video in a chrome browser with no plugins / other software required. (As long as you are logged into FB and have permission to view the video).

1. open up the video and r.click for Get Video URL (copy it) -if you have the option "Copy URL at current time", use that option instead of "Show video URL"
2. paste that address into another tab and replace the www with m e.g. https://m.facebook.com/MusicIsMagico/videos/2645908645633407/?t=0
3. play the video, while it's playing open the dev tools and go to the elements tab

4. search for mp4 till you find a source address that's inside the video tags - which will be inside a div that also contains another address with forward slashes and .mp4 in it. e.g.

   https://video.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t42.9040-2/10000000_1804934796220974_2070197824632389632_n.mp4?_nc_cat=1&amp;efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCJ9&amp;oh=785f223b80388c820f79b9a49c1dfc39&amp;oe=5B73B10B

5. copy this source address. When you copy the address, chrome (if that's what you are using) does the html replacement for the ampersand characters. You will need to put them back. So replace the "& a m p ;" (< had to space that so it doesn't get converted here) separators in the address with just & - use notepad find and replace or something ) and paste in another tab. Drop any parts of the URL that have frame sizing etc.. so you address should look like this:

https://video.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t42.9040-2/10000000_1804934796220974_2070197824632389632_n.mp4?_nc_cat=1&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCJ9&oh=5f241d3c08d5c819b0c3810d0e21d73b&oe=5B73BF1B

• this will load your browsers default html video player which has a download button
  • this will all only work if you are logged into FB and have permission to view the video (doesnt' work incognito)

Getting the right URL can take a bit of playing around but it works when you've got it right

Droll

You seem to have missed the entire point. Downloading MP4 is easy. There is no MP4 source, just a blob. – Field

Works perfectly. – Coh

Downvoted. The question is about FB blob: videos, not FB https://video... videos. – Communicative

Answer 4

I assemble here the necessary steps from the different answers :

1. Facebook downloads the audio and the video separately, so get the audio link from the google chrome inspector, by right click on the video and choosing inspect ,going to Inspector, Network Tab, and checking the links, use filter:larger-than:50k in the filter area to select bigger files (change 50k according to the length of your video), look in the results for mp4 or wav links, remove &bytestart=number_here &byteend =number_here from the end of the link, open it and download the audio

2. Get the video link from the google chrome inspector, using same steps above, open the link and download the video

Now in order to mix the audio and the video, we need to use ffmeg :

3. Download ffmpeg build for your OS from its website, use this link

4. Extract the downloaded zip file

5. Open your command line tool and cd to : \Downloads\ffmpeg-2021-04-28-git-1ab74bc193-full_build\ffmpeg-2021-04-28-git-1ab74bc193-full_build\bin (change according to which version you downloaded)

6. Assume the input files are in the current folder, the output will be generated in the current folder too

   Mix the audio and the video with ffmpeg using command :
   .\ffmpeg.exe -i video.ext -i audio.ext -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4

Postwar

Answer 5

Add this extension to your chrome browser to download FB videos:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-downloader-plus/njgehaondchbmjmajphnhlojfnbfokng

Once installed, go play the video and click the fb downloader icon (Downward Arrow icon) and choose your desired resolution.

Caskey

But this one is facebook's private video – Pedroza

404. That’s an error. – Manyplies

Answer 6

I use Blob Video Downloader extension. It takes a few mins but it opens a new tab with a button to download video. I try it with a 1min video 720p.

Swig

Not really useful as the video and audio are separate – Susanasusanetta

I didn't have this issue. But, it's easy to add audio with a free video editor program like windows 10 video editor. – Swig

You can just use ffmpeg – Susanasusanetta

Answer 7

For video that is in this blob format

or other formats served by Facebook with the intent to hide the ability to download, you can try loading the page without Javascript. They will serve you a version that is compatible, which means directlink

Tested working 11-2020

Gearhart

Tried Feb 2021 - page loads nothing useful now. – Allista

@Gearhart How Facebook dowloder online tools work? I want to build a one from asp.net. Can you guide me? Where should I start... Thank you – Tumefaction

could not make this work. page appears blank when JS is disabled. – Sistrunk