Facebook Video Downloader

Paste the link of a public Facebook video or reel and you get it as an MP4, or only its sound as an MP3. Each file is saved in the run's key-value store, and its row in the dataset carries a direct download link.

You pay for the megabytes you receive. A link that fails, or a video over your size limit, is skipped and not billed per megabyte.

Input

{ "urls": ["https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10155529876156509/"] }

Field	Default	What it does
urls	none	One link per line: a Facebook video, watch or reel link.
quality	1080	best, 1080, 720, 480 or 360. The number is the short side of the picture, so 1080 means 1920x1080 for a landscape video and 1080x1920 for a vertical one. If a video doesn't come in that quality, you get the closest one it has.
audioOnly	false	Only the video's sound, as a 128 kbit/s MP3.
convertToH264	false	Re-encode VP9 and AV1 videos to H.264, which older Apple players need. It takes longer; see the section on converting below.
maxMegabytes	500	Your limit per video. A bigger video is skipped before anything is downloaded.

fb.watch short links usually don't come through. Facebook asks for a login before it opens them, and there is no login behind this actor. Open the link in your browser and paste the facebook.com address it lands on; that one works like any other link. facebook.com/share/ links are followed to the post first, and then treated like the post's own link.

This actor takes Facebook links only. A TikTok or X link is refused before anything is fetched, with a pointer to our TikTok Video Downloader or X Video Downloader. YouTube links go in our YouTube Downloader.

What you get

One dataset row per delivered file:

{
  "url": "https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10155529876156509/",
  "host": "facebook",
  "title": "Holocaust survivor becomes US citizen",
  "author": "CNN",
  "durationSeconds": 44.48,
  "resolution": "1080x1080",
  "format": "mp4",
  "fileSizeBytes": 7725292,
  "billedMegabytes": 8,
  "videoCodec": "vp9",
  "convertedToH264": false,
  "note": null,
  "mediaKey": "facebook-10155529876156509.mp4",
  "mediaUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/facebook-10155529876156509.mp4"
}

resolution and durationSeconds are measured on the file you receive, not copied from the page. billedMegabytes is the file size rounded up to whole megabytes, where a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. videoCodec is the codec of the file you receive. convertedToH264 says whether the actor re-encoded it for you, and when you asked for that and it wasn't done, note says why. For a reel, the title is usually the caption with its view and reaction counts in front, the way Facebook shows it.

Facebook sends picture and sound separately, and they are merged into one MP4 for you. You get H.264 video when Facebook offers it at your quality. Many videos, the one above included, only come as VP9 at their best quality, and some reels only as AV1. Older players and editors may not open those; see converting to H.264 below.

Links that don't work out are listed in the ERRORS record of the same key-value store, each with a plain reason. They never show up in the dataset. If not one link could be downloaded, the run ends as Failed instead of Succeeded, so a scheduled job or an integration notices.

Converting VP9 and AV1 to H.264

Some reels exist on Facebook in one video codec only, and for a fair number of them that codec is VP9 or AV1. A browser plays them. QuickTime on a Mac, or an older iPhone, may not open them at all.

Turn on convertToH264 and each video that isn't H.264 already is re-encoded to H.264 at the same picture size, sound included. The MP4 starts playing before it has fully downloaded. Videos Facebook already sends as H.264 are left as they are, and so are MP3s.

It takes longer, because every frame is encoded again. In testing, a 27-second 1080x1920 reel took about a minute and a half at the default 1024 MB of memory and under a minute at 2048 MB; a 9-second one took 20 seconds. At the default memory roughly three minutes of 1080p video can be converted per link. For a longer video the run says how much memory to use, before anything is downloaded.

The H.264 file is bigger, about 2 to 2.6 times the original in testing, and you pay per megabyte of the file you receive. Converting costs $0.03 for each started minute of video converted, on top of the megabytes of the H.264 file. A 27-second reel counts as one minute, a 61-second video as two.

When a conversion fails, or the H.264 copy would go over your maxMegabytes or the run's maximum charge, you get the original file instead, with a note on its row saying why, and the conversion isn't charged. A video too long to convert in the time the run has is skipped before anything is downloaded, with a message saying what to change.

Billing

Each delivered file is charged once, for its size in megabytes rounded up: the 7.7 MB video above counts as 8 MB. The price per megabyte for your Apify plan is on the Pricing tab.

With the conversion on, a converted video also costs $0.03 for each started minute of video converted, on top of the megabytes of the H.264 file. A 27-second reel counts as one minute. Videos that are already H.264, MP3s, and conversions that fail or are refused cost nothing extra.

A link that fails, a video over your maxMegabytes, or one that doesn't fit the run costs nothing per megabyte. If you set a maximum charge for the run, the actor checks it before each download and skips a video it can't pay for rather than going over.

Big files

Facebook videos can be long. One run holds files up to about 70% of its memory, so 716 MB at the default 1024 MB. A bigger video is refused before it is downloaded, with a message that names the memory to use: an hour-long stream came to 1,866 MB in testing and needed 4096 MB. Pick that in the run options and run the link again. maxMegabytes goes up to 4000.

What it doesn't do

• Other sites. Facebook only; see the links above for TikTok, X and YouTube. Instagram and Vimeo are not supported by any of them.
• Private, friends-only or group-only videos. There's no account and no cookies behind this. If you have to be signed in to watch it, it can't be downloaded here.
• fb.watch short links, most of the time. See above: paste the facebook.com address instead.
• Live videos while they are still live.
• Posts without a video, such as photo posts.
• Whole pages or playlists. One link, one video.
• Other formats. The conversion only makes H.264 MP4, at the video's own picture size.

Now and then Facebook doesn't return a video for a public link that worked a minute earlier. The actor tries such a link once more on its own; if it still fails, the reason says to try again later.

Copyright

The videos belong to the people who posted them. Download only what you own or have permission to use, and stay within Facebook's terms.

FAQ

Do I need an account, cookies or an API key? No. The link is the whole input.

Can I send lots of links in one run? Yes. They are downloaded one after another, and a short video takes 5 to 10 seconds. The default run timeout is 30 minutes, so give a very big batch more.

Will a smaller memory setting save money? No. It doesn't change the price, and at 512 MB the same batch took about 75% longer in testing.

Where are the files? In the run's key-value store. mediaUrl in each row is a direct link, and mediaKey is the key if you'd rather fetch it through the API. How long the store is kept depends on your Apify plan, so download what you need.