5 Ways to Download Private Facebook Video [HD]

When you upload a video to Facebook, you can set the privacy to Public which means anyone can see it. If you have not set it to Public, then the video is a private video. If you post a video to a private group, then the video is also certainly a private Facebook video.

In this post, I will show you 5 ways to download Private Facebook videos in HD or SD. Of course, you can also use these private video downloaders to download public Facebook videos. If you see there is no Share button below a Facebook video post, then that is a private Facebook video and you can choose one of the methods below to download it.

Method 1: Download Private Facebook Video with Only Web Browser

Most videos uploaded by your friends are private videos because it is the default setting. In order to download a friend’s video from Facebook, try the following steps:

Step 1. Right-click on the private Facebook video and select Copy the URL.

Step 2. Replace the “www” with “mbasic.” in the video URL and open it in a new tab.

Step 3. Click to play this video and a new tab will be open.

Step 4. In the new tab, you can see a download button under the video. You can download this private Facebook video by clicking the download button or right click on the video and selecting Save Video as…

This is so easy, but this method can only download some videos from Facebook in SD, which means it does not work for all videos. If you want to download a Facebook video in 1080P, check the next methods.

Method 2: Download Private Facebook Video with Firefox Addon

If you want to download Facebook videos in HD, you can get this Video Downloader Professional Firefox Add-on. The Chrome extension also works with private Facebook videos, but Firefox is recommended.

With this Firefox Add-on, it is very easy to download Facebook videos from a private group or account. You can just copy the video URL and open it in a new tab. And then on the Facebook video page, click on the Video Downloader Professional add-on icon. From there, you will see a few download options with different video quality. You can just click on one of them to download this video.

This add-on is capable of downloading videos from many websites besides Facebook.

Method 3: Download Videos from Private Facebook Group

If the add-on is not your thing, you probably going to like this open source software, yt-dlp, which is available for downloading videos from 400+ websites. Since YouTube-DL is discontinued, yt-dlp is a good replacement for it, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. I am just going to show you how to get it to work in Windows. You can check this post to see how to set it up in macOS.

Step 1. Download yt-dlp.exe and move it to your user folder (C:/User/YourName). You can also add it to system path.

Step 2. Download FFmpeg and open the FFmpeg folder and copy everything from the Bin subfolder to your user folder where you save the Yt-dlp.exe file.

Step 3. Press Windows + R. Type “CMD” (without quotes) and press Enter. Don’t run it as an administrator.

Step 4. In the Command Prompt window, type the following and press Enter. Be sure to replace Facebook URL with the URL of the private Facebook video that you want to download.

yt-dlp.exe [Facebook video url] --username [Facebook account] --password [Facebook account password]

If you have 2-factor authentication enabled, you should use the command below and be sure to change “chrome” to the browser that you use to watch the Facebook video.

yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser chrome [private video URL]

That’s it. You will see the downloading is in progress. When it is done, you can find the downloaded video in your User folder. With a free terminal emulator app, you can also install YouTube-DL on iOS or Android.

Method 4: Private Facebook Downloader Shortcut for iPhone and Mac

You can also download private Facebook videos on iPhone using Siri Shortcuts. If you don’t know about Siri Shortcuts, then you have missed a lot. The Shortcuts app can do many things and downloading Facebook videos is among them.

Since Shortcuts is pre-installed, just get this Facebook Video Downloader shortcut. You can open the shortcut link in Safari to get it. Then you can use the Shortcuts app to download private Facebook videos to iPhone Camera Roll.

Step 1. For private videos, you should also install the A-Shell app, which is free in App Store.

Step 2. Open Safari and log in to your Facebook account. Go to the page of the private Facebook video that you want to download.

Step 3. Tap the Share button (Safari) and select Shortcuts. The Safari share button since there is no Share button under any private Facebook video.

Step 4. Select the Facebook Video Downloader shortcut that you just added.

When you run it for the first time, you should allow this shortcut to access your Photo library so it can save downloaded videos. When it is complete, you can open the Photos app to check the video. You can also copy the Facebook video URL and run this shortcut to download any public Facebook video.

Shortcuts app is also available in macOS Monterey. If you have updated your Mac to macOS 12, you can also use this shortcut to download videos from a private Facebook Group on Mac.

Method 5: Download Private Video from Facebook with ByClick Downloader

If you prefer GUI software, then this ByClick Downloader is your thing. Unlike YouTube-DL, ByClick Downloader allows you to download any Facebook video by just pasting the URL without the need to type your login info each time.

Besides Facebook videos, you can use ByClick Downloader to download 4K YouTube video with audio, download music from SoundCloud, etc.

Let me show you how this software works.

Step 1. Download and Launch ByClick Downloader. In Settings, click Add account to allow access to your Google Chrome in order to download private videos.

Step 2. Right-click on the private Facebook video, and select Copy the URL. Next, paste the selected private Facebook video URL to ByClick.

Step 3. Click the “Download” button to start downloading the private Facebook video.

If you want to download Facebook videos to MP3, you can simply change the output format in its main interface. However, ByClick Downloader is only for Windows. If you need a Downloader app for Mac, you should check 4K Video Downloader.

Bonus Method: Download Private Facebook Video With IDM

Internet Download Manager (IDM) has been around for many years to speed up download speed. You probably have heard of it. You can use it to download videos from many websites including Facebook.

Well, to download private videos from Facebook, you will also need the IDM Integration Module extension for your browser. Once you have installed the latest version of IDM, it will prompt you to enable this extension.

After that, when you view any Facebook videos including those from private groups, you will see a download button at the top right of the video as the screenshot above. You can click on it to download the private video.

Conclusion

All these 5 methods addressed have been tested many times and are currently working smoothly. You can use it to download private Facebook videos as many as you want. Try it out and let us know which one works best for you in the comments. For me, it is Allavsoft because it not only allows me to download Facebook videos but many others. If you just want to download videos from Facebook, you can use other free methods, but if you think Allavsoft is one tool for downloading all kinds of media, it is worth it.

If there is any problem, let me know. By the way, I love creating shortcuts for iPhone and iPad. If the Facebook Video Downloader shortcut doesn’t work, let me know and I will fix it soon.