How to Download Videos from Safari to iPhone and iPad

Contrary to popular belief, it’s easy to download videos on iPhone and iPad using Safari. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to save video files locally to your iPhone’s Camera Roll and the Files app for offline viewing.

What videos can be downloaded on iPhone?

Chat Applications

In almost all chat apps like Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc., you can download the videos people send you and view them in this messaging app or export them to the Photos app on your iPhone.

Social Applications

Most social networking apps such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook do not allow you to easily save video clips to your camera roll. However, some free App Store video download apps, iOS shortcuts, and third-party websites allow you to save videos from these social platforms to your iPhone.

YouTube

The YouTube app has a video download option, and the only legal way to download a YouTube video is by clicking the download button on the official app. The saved video remains in the sandbox in the YouTube app, where you can watch it offline, but you can’t transfer it to your iPhone camera roll.

In about 125 countries and regions such as India, Israel, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, UAE and Vietnam, you can download most YouTube videos to the app for offline viewing – without YouTube Premium. required for.

However, in countries such as the US, UK, Australia, France, Italy, and more, downloading YouTube videos requires a Premium subscription.

safari

You can browse websites using Apple Safari and search for the video you want to download. Some sites may offer an easy way to download videos, while others may not, and when you touch the video, it starts playing in Safari with no visible button to save the video file. But don’t worry, we’ll show you how to solve this problem. These tips won’t work for all websites, but should cover most of them.

How to download videos on iPhone and iPad

1) Open Safari and search for a video on the corresponding website. For this tutorial, I’m using Pixabay, a royalty-free video library.

2) When you land on the video page, click the download button or link. If you don’t see the download button, skip to the next section.

3) Once you tap the video download icon on a website in Safari, you should see an iOS popup menu with two options – View and Download. Click “Upload”and the file will be saved. You’ll notice that Safari’s address bar now has a tiny arrow icon and a round blue progress bar to indicate download status.

4) Tap the Safari arrow icon and select “Downloads”to navigate to the download manager, which lists the downloaded files. These files are saved in a folder inside the Files app.

But you can easily add them to your iPhone’s Camera Roll in one of the following two ways:

Save Video: Tap the video file > Share button > Save Video.

Drag: Tap and hold on a video file and its tile will pop up slightly. Drag it slightly from its original position to detach, but don’t lift your finger yet. Now swipe up (or press the Home button) with your other hand to go to the iPhone home screen. From here, open the Photos app and make sure you’re inside Recents or an album. Finally, drag the video file by lifting your finger. You will see that the video has now been added to the Photos app.

Another way to save a video file using Safari on iOS

As mentioned earlier, not all websites offer a download button. But for videos, you will see a play button, and clicking on it starts the video playback in Safari. So, if you find yourself on such a website, play the video and then follow these steps:

1) In the Safari video player, click the Picture-in-Picture button, which will detach the video and place it in a small floating window. This won’t work if you click the Picture-in-Picture button directly on a web page’s video player, such as Vimeo.

2) Click the share button on the video player screen.

3) Select “Save to Files”> select “iCloud”or “On My iPhone”> “Save”.

Don’t see the share button in step 2?

In the left screenshot, you can see the video playing/streaming on the web page. And in the right image, you see a video file that starts playing in Safari’s default media player.

If a video is embedded in a website, it usually plays on the same web page (top left image) and does not launch the video player in Safari. In this case, you will not be able to download the video unless you look for third-party sites that can save such videos. For example, clicking on a Twitter video starts playing it in the browser, and you can’t download it directly from Safari, but you can use a site like Twitter Video Downloader in Safari, which will grab the Twitter video and play it in the Safari video. player (top right image) and allows you to save the file.

On some sites, pressing the triangular play button on a video may cause it to play on the web page, making it impossible to download. Hopefully you can fix this by finding a View, Download, or Play button that downloads the actual video file and starts playing it in the Safari video player. Once the file appears in the Safari video player, type “Picture in Picture”and click the Share button > Save to Files.

Find downloaded files on iPhone or iPad

You will find the downloaded video in the following locations:

Inside Safari: Click the download button in the address bar, click Downloads and you will see the video file.

In the Camera Roll: Open the Photos app and tap Recent in the Albums tab.

In the Files app: Open the Files app and tap Recent to view videos. You can also click “Browse”and find the video in your downloads folder. In the Files app, touch and hold a video thumbnail, then choose Share > Save Video to add it to the Photos app.

This is how you can download video files to your iOS or iPadOS device. Not all websites allow you to download videos. But in many situations, you can use the methods above to save it locally and watch it offline without a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.