如何從 YouTube、Instagram、TikTok 和 Facebook 下載影片（2026 年指南）

If you want to download videos from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, the first thing worth knowing is that none of these platforms make it straightforward on purpose. YouTube keeps offline playback inside a paid subscription. Instagram gives you a bookmark, not a file. TikTok stamps a watermark on anything you save from the app. Facebook offers no save button at all on the web.

The workaround most people land on is a link-based online video downloader: you copy the share URL, paste it into a web page, and get an MP4 back. The mechanics are genuinely that simple, and they are the same across every platform in this guide.

What is not simple is whether you are allowed to. Every one of these platforms restricts third-party downloading in its terms of service, and copyright law sits on top of that. This guide covers both halves: the exact steps for each platform, and an honest account of where the lines are so you can decide for yourself.

Before you download: what the rules actually say

Skipping this section is tempting. Read it anyway, because the answer to "is this allowed?" depends almost entirely on whose video it is and what you plan to do with it.

Platform terms of service

YouTube's terms permit downloading only through features YouTube itself provides — the offline option inside a Premium subscription, or a download button the service explicitly displays. Using an outside tool to pull a file is a breach of those terms. Meta applies comparable restrictions across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, prohibiting automated collection of content without permission. TikTok's terms take the same line.

Breaching terms of service is a contract matter between you and the platform, not a criminal one. In practice the realistic consequences are account-level: rate limiting, or losing access. But "the platform says no" is a real answer, and it applies to every tool on the internet, not just some of them.

Copyright

Copyright is the more consequential layer. A video is a creative work owned by whoever made it, and downloading a copy is reproduction. Some countries have private-copying or fair-dealing exceptions that cover a personal offline copy; others, including the United States, have no general private-copying exemption, and US fair use is a case-by-case defence rather than a blanket permission.

Where the risk becomes concrete is redistribution. Saving a clip to watch on a flight is a very different act from reuploading it to your own account, cutting it into a monetised compilation, or running it in an ad. The first rarely draws attention. The second is straightforward infringement and is what actually generates takedowns, strikes, and legal letters.

When downloading is clearly fine

Your own content. Your uploads are yours. Every platform also offers a native data export for this, which is the cleanest route.
Content you have permission for. A message from the creator saying yes settles the question.
Openly licensed or public-domain material. Creative Commons YouTube uploads, government footage, and expired-copyright archives are made to be reused — check the specific licence terms, since most CC licences still require attribution.
Platform-provided offline features. YouTube Premium's offline mode and Instagram's save-your-own-post option are sanctioned by definition.

Everything outside those four cases is a judgement call you are making, not one a tool makes for you. Assume anything you download stays private unless you have a licence that says otherwise.

How to download YouTube videos

YouTube is the most-searched source for offline saving — lectures for a commute, reference footage, music you already own. The native option is YouTube Premium, which downloads inside the app for offline playback and is the only method YouTube endorses.

If you are working with your own uploads, Creative Commons material, or content you have cleared, a link-based tool handles it:

Open the video in the YouTube app or on the web.
Tap Share, then Copy link. On desktop, copying the address bar URL works just as well.
Paste the link into the YouTube video downloader.
Pick a resolution — 720p, 1080p, or higher if the source was uploaded that way.
Start the download and wait for the MP4 to finish transferring.

A few things that trip people up. You cannot pull a resolution the creator never uploaded, so a 4K option only appears when a 4K master exists. Very long videos take proportionally longer to process, because the file has to be assembled before it can be sent. Age-restricted, members-only, unlisted, and private videos generally will not resolve at all, since the tool has no logged-in session.

Shorts and audio-only

Vertical Shorts use a different URL pattern from standard watch pages, and a YouTube Shorts downloader is built for that format. If what you actually want is the soundtrack rather than the picture, download the MP4 first and then run it through a video to MP3 converter — the same copyright reasoning applies, and music is the category where rights holders are most active. Before committing to a large download, a quick look at the YouTube video info lookup tells you the duration and available formats.

How to download Instagram reels and videos

Instagram has no download button for other people's posts. Its save feature is a bookmark: the post is filed into your Collections and still lives on Instagram's servers, so it disappears the moment the creator deletes it and is useless without a connection. For your own posts, Instagram's Download your information export in account settings gives you the original files.

For public reels and video posts you have a reason to save:

Open the reel or post in the Instagram app.
Tap the three-dot menu and choose Copy link. In a browser, use the post URL.
Paste it into the Instagram video downloader.
Download the file when the tool returns it.

Only public accounts work. If the poster's profile is private, the link is not publicly resolvable and no third-party tool can reach it — anything claiming otherwise is either lying or asking for your login, which you should never hand over. Stories carry the same constraint and expire after 24 hours; an Instagram story downloader only sees public stories that are still live. For still images and carousel photos, an Instagram image downloader is the right tool, since a video downloader will not return a JPEG.

How to download TikTok videos, and what the watermark means

TikTok does have a native save button, and it works — it just burns a watermark with the TikTok logo and the creator's username into the exported file. That watermark exists for attribution and to track reposts, and creators can switch downloads off entirely in their privacy settings. When downloads are disabled, the save option disappears and third-party tools will not resolve the link either.

Tap Share on the video and choose Copy link.
Paste the link into the TikTok video downloader.
Download the returned MP4.

Tools that fetch the source file rather than the in-app export usually return it without the burnt-in watermark. Be deliberate about that. Stripping a creator's attribution and reposting the clip as your own is exactly the behaviour the watermark is designed to prevent, and it is a fast route to a copyright complaint. Removing a watermark from your own videos before publishing them elsewhere is a normal, uncontroversial workflow. Removing someone else's is not.

How to download Facebook videos

Facebook offers no download control on public video posts in the browser. As with Instagram, Meta's Download your information export covers content you posted yourself.

Open the video post and click the three-dot menu, or copy the URL from the address bar.
If you get a shortened fb.watch link, that works too.
Paste it into the Facebook video downloader.
Choose the available quality and download.

Only public posts resolve. Videos inside private groups, friends-only posts, and anything behind a login will fail, because the page is not reachable without your session. Live broadcasts are unpredictable while they are still running and are far more reliable once the replay has been saved to the page.

Platform cheat sheet

Platform	Native option	What a link tool gets you	Main limitation
YouTube	Offline playback with a Premium subscription	MP4 at the resolutions the creator uploaded	Private, unlisted, members-only, and age-gated videos will not resolve
Instagram	Bookmark to Collections; data export for your own posts	Reels and video posts from public accounts	Nothing from private accounts; stories expire in 24 hours
TikTok	In-app save with a burnt-in watermark	The source MP4, usually without the watermark	Fails when the creator has turned downloads off
Facebook	Data export for your own posts only	Public video posts and reels	Group, friends-only, and login-gated video will not resolve

Picking quality, format, and file size

Higher resolution is not automatically the right choice. A 1080p copy of a talking-head interview is indistinguishable from 720p on a phone screen and can be several times the size. Match the resolution to the screen you will actually watch it on, and reserve 4K for footage you plan to edit or project.

Nearly every download comes back as MP4 with H.264 video, which plays everywhere without conversion. When you need something else — an older device, an editor that wants a specific container — a video format converter handles the change after the fact. If storage or upload limits are the constraint, running the file through a video compressor is usually a better trade than downloading a lower resolution to begin with, because you keep control over how much quality you give up. To keep only the soundtrack of an interview or lecture, extract the audio from the video and delete the picture entirely.

When a download fails

Most failures come down to one of a handful of causes, and knowing which saves a lot of retrying.

The content is not public. Private accounts, unlisted videos, group posts, and paid or members-only material are invisible to any tool without your login. This is not a bug to work around.
The creator disabled downloads. Common on TikTok, and the tool has no way past it.
The link is wrong. A profile URL, a search results page, or a truncated share link will not resolve. Copy the link from the individual post.
The platform changed something. Playback URLs shift regularly and every downloader breaks temporarily when they do. Waiting a day is often the whole fix.
The video is DRM-protected. Paid streaming catalogues use encryption that no browser tool decrypts, and circumventing it carries legal exposure well beyond a terms-of-service breach.

The same copy-paste flow covers platforms far beyond these four. A general video downloader accepts links from most public video hosts, and there are dedicated tools for Twitter video, Threads video, Pinterest video, and Reddit video when a platform-specific parser gives better results. The full set lives in the downloaders category — all browser-based, with no app, extension, or sign-up, which also means nothing is installed on your machine and no account credentials are involved.

Frequently asked questions

Is downloading videos from these platforms legal?

It depends on the video and your jurisdiction. Every one of these platforms prohibits third-party downloading in its terms of service, so it is a breach of contract regardless. Whether it is also copyright infringement depends on who owns the video, what you do with the copy, and whether your country recognises a private-copying exception. Your own content, licensed content, and public-domain material are safe; redistributing someone else's work is not.

No. Private accounts, closed groups, unlisted videos, and subscription content are not publicly reachable, so no browser tool can fetch them. Any service claiming it can is either misrepresenting what it does or trying to collect your login details.

Do these tools work on a phone?

Yes. They run in the mobile browser on both Android and iOS with no app to install. On iOS, downloaded files land in the Files app, and you can move them into Photos from there.

Why is the resolution I want not offered?

Because it does not exist. A downloader can only return the renditions the platform actually stores, so a video uploaded at 720p will never yield a 1080p file. Upscaling after the fact adds pixels, not detail.

Is it safe to remove a TikTok watermark?

Technically simple, but the answer depends on whose video it is. Removing the watermark from your own clips before posting them elsewhere is routine. Removing it from someone else's and reposting strips their attribution, breaches the platform's rules, and is the single most common trigger for a copyright complaint.

Do downloaded videos keep their original quality?

Usually. A good tool returns the platform's stored file rather than re-encoding it, so quality matches what you saw while streaming. Note that all four platforms compress uploads on ingest, so the "original quality" you receive is the platform's version, not the creator's master.

The short version

The technical part of downloading a video is trivial: copy the link, paste it, save the file. The part worth thinking about is what happens next. Keep downloads for offline viewing, reference, and archiving your own work, get permission or a licence before anything public-facing, and leave creator watermarks and attribution intact. That covers the overwhelming majority of legitimate reasons to want a video file, and it keeps you clear of the ones that cause problems.