To prevent video download, some websites like Facebook and Instagram use a blob URL to encrypt the video link. When you try to download video with the blob URL, you may encounter various errors. As the blob URL is not the real video URL. So how to download blob videos? In this post, we will show you how to get the real blob video URL and download blob videos to MP4, MKV, MP3, etc.
This method works for all kinds of blob videos, like Facebook blob videos, Vimeo blob videos, JW Player blob videos, etc.
When you use a crawler to crawl some videos or search for "src" of a video tag on Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc., you might find blob video URLs in Inspect Element with URL like this:
blob:https://XXXX.com/f2131345-fac6-4ec4-8038-4dc5ed27b2ff
What is blob, why these URLs can't be opened and return "404", "Your file was not found", “Your file couldn’t be accessed”, or other errors?
Blob: https is not a protocol, but a string of tags generated by the blob object in HTML5. The browser will parse the data contained in the blob object internally. The blob URLs are always short and allow to access the Blob. but it is only valid within the current document, while it’s open.
It depends on website codes. Some websites support blob video download, others may not.
The most common way recommended in the forum: open a blob video > go to "Inspect" > "Network" tab > download video in .m3u8 or .ts format.
However, I don’t think it’s a good way to download blob videos from “Inspect":
Each blob video has both a blob URL and a regular URL. For example:
You can't download video via a blob URL but via a regular URL with the help of video downloader tools.
Cisdem Video Converter is a highly praised blob video downloader, capable of downloading blob videos from Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, JWPlayer, Dailymotion, Livestream, and other 1000+ video sharing websites. It can download videos in high quality under 1080P, 4K, 5K or higher resolution.
It allows you to rip DVD as well as convert downloaded blob videos to an array of popular formats like MP4, MKV, FLV, MP3, WebM, etc. in super good quality. Plus, more advanced features are accessible for your to modify the videos, including customizing the video appearance through trimming, rotating, adjust video effects, adding subtitles/watermark, etc., reorganizing the inner encoding parameters.
Free Download macOS 10.12 or later Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
To get the blob downloader, click the "Free Download" button above. Once the downloading process is finished, install, and run the software on computer.
It will open to the “convert" tab (the first tab). You should switch to the "download" tab (the third tab).
Locate to a blob video and copy its normal URL (from the address bar or right-click the video to get the URL).
Back to Cisdem Video Converter, and paste the URL of blob video in the white download box at the bottom.
Click the button to save blob video on your computer. You can download multiple blob videos in batches. Just click and repeat step 2 to add video links and start to download them.
Click the icon to bring up the folder named Cisdem Video Converter on Mac or Windows, in which you can see the downloaded blob videos.
Go to “convert” tab > drag the blob videos to it > open up the format library > select any of the formats > click the icon to tweak the quality, bitrate resolution, etc. of the output files.
When all are settled, click the button to convert blob videos to your favorite formats.
As the name indicates, VLC is a preeminent open source player to play almost all videos and audios smoothly. Moreover, it is equipped with various potential features for more purposes, and downloading online videos is one of them. If you want to download blob video for free, VLC is a great option, which works with various websites and is able to download and convert them to some other formats, like MP4, WebM, TS, MP3, OGG and more.
Step 1. Open the downloaded VLC on your Mac.
Step 2. Click “File > Open Network” on to top toolbox to call up the window for downloading.
Step 3. Visit a media website on browser, copy the normal URL of a blob video.
Step 4. Back to VLC, locate to “Network” tab, paste the copied URL into the blank box, tick out the “Stream output” box and then click the appearing “Settings” button to make output settings. Once done, click “OK” and then “Open” to play the video.
Step 5. Once playing the video, click “Window > Media Information” on the top toolbox to view the codec information, copy the URL at the bottom “Location” field.
Step 6. Paste the copied URL in to a new tab on browser and press “Enter” to load the video. Finally, right-click on the playing video and choose “Save Video as” to download the video.
Step 1. Open VLC on your PC.
Step 2. In the toolbar, click Media > Convert/Save > choose Network tab. Or you can directly choose Open Network Stream from the drop-down list.
Step 3. Please copy and paste the real blob video url to VLC. And click “Convert/Save” > “Convert” on the bottom to continue.
Step 4. In the pop-up window, choose MP4 or other video formats you like, and click Browse button to select a suitable destination.
Step 5. Click Start and VLC will begin downloading blob videos.
SaveFrom.net captures blob video from site the moment you enter the video link. It helps you download videos from over 40 media streaming sites, such as YouTube, Break, Hotstar, Bilibili, Streamago, etc., and save them as MP4, WEBM, or audio format. Aside from the online version, this blob video downloader also has an Android app and a browser extension known as SaveFrom.net helper.
Step 1. Visit https://en.savefrom.net/391GA/.
Step 2. Copy the link of blob video and enter your URL in the form box.
Step 3. Choose an output quality.
Step 4. Click the green “Download” button, and it will start blob video download immediately.
Video Downloader Professional is considered as one of the best blob downloaders extensions for Google Chrome. It works on most mainstream blob video websites and downloads videos in various resolutions from 240P to 1080P.
Step 1. Install Video Downloader Professional from Chrome web store. Just search its name and add the extension to Chrome.
Step 2. Open a blob video on the website you need to download and play the video to help the extension detect it. You will see a red dot pop up Video Downloader Professional icon in Chrome’s toolbar.
Step 3. Click on the extension icon, and the blob video that is playing will be displayed in the pop-up dialog with sizes.
Step 4. Choose one with the largest size and click the “Download” button to start to download blob video Chrome.
OFFMP4 Video Downloader is testified to be one of the best blob video downloader for Firefox currently, which is a powerful online video download helper to download blob videos and embedded videos in Firefox for free. It perfectly works on the existing popular streaming sites, like YouTube, Dailymotion, Twitter, Bilibii and more. With this clear tool, you can extract videos from websites on Firefox effortlessly while maintaining high quality up to 1080P.
Step 1. Open Firefox browser and navigate to the OFFMP4 Video Downloader addon page, and click "Add to Firefox".
Step 2. Click "Add" to confirm the installation, and then pin the icon of OFFMP4 to make it show up beside the address bar.
Step 3. Visit a blob video and wait for Firefox addon to detect it.
Step 4. Click the add-on icon to save the video offline. But it will randomly show you two situations.
#1. It pops up a window with different quality options for you to download. In this case, just click the according Download button.
Then it prompts a new small window for you to write down a suitable output name and destination. Once done, click Save to start the download.
#2. It shows you the video link with Download button. In this case, click the Download button.
It will then take you to a new page of 9xbuddy.com, a great online video downloader, which will analyze the link automatically and show you the available download options when finished. Click the Download Now button of the desired video quality and it will be saved to your computer right away.
The older Safari version has a hidden feature that can download a blob video on Safari.
Step 1. Launch Safari. From the menu bar, click the "Windows" tab > then “Activity”.
Step 2. Head on to a website where the blob video is and play the video.
Step 3. Go back to the “Activity” tab and find the video file from the list.
Step 4. Double-click it to download the video.
Can I Download Blob Video via Safari Extension?
Yes, you can!
People are able to install a Safari extension: go to menu bar > “Safari” > “Safari Extensions” > get extension from App Store. Unfortunately, there is no blob video downloader tool out there.
Everything you can do is to install Parallels Toolbox (available on macOS and Windows 10 from https://www.parallels.com/products/toolbox/. But it’s not as same as Stream Video Downloader and Video Downloader Pro, you have to install the .dmg or .exe file and pay $19.99/per year.
These are our solutions to download blob videos on Mac and Windows. We believe it really helped you in blob video download from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, JWplayer, Twitter, and other websites. The free online tool and extensions come with limited functionality while third-party software such as Cisdem Video Converter offers more powerful features (batch download, edit, many output options, etc.). So if you need to download videos very often, using a professional tool is your best choice.
Peter has always had great enthusiasm for writing, programming and web development. He likes writing about software and technology, his works are featured on some tech blogs or forums like Tom's Hardware, CNET, etc.