Download X videos on iPhone with Safari

iPhone + Safari at a glance

Device / OS

iPhone (iOS)

Browser

Safari

File lands in

Files › Downloads (iCloud Drive by default)

Open your downloads

Tap the download arrow in the address bar, or the page menu › Downloads

Move to photos / gallery

Files › long-press the MP4 › Share › Save Video

Plays in

Files (Quick Look), Photos once saved, any video app

Download an X video with Safari on iPhone

1. Copy the post link in the X app. Tap the share icon under the post, then Copy link. A link with ?s=20 or /video/1 on the end is fine.
2. Open TwitterDownloaderX in Safari. Paste the link into the box on this page and tap Extract. The available MP4 qualities appear under the preview.
3. Tap a quality, then Download. Safari asks “Do you want to download user_…_720p.mp4?” with View and Download. Tap Download, not View.
4. Wait for the arrow to finish. A blue download arrow appears at the left of the address bar. When its circle fills, the file is complete.
5. Move it to Photos. Tap the arrow, tap the file to open it, tap Share, then Save Video. It now sits in Recents in the Photos app.

Where the file ends up on iPhone

Safari writes the MP4 to the folder chosen in Settings › Apps › Safari › Downloads (on older iOS: Settings › Safari › Downloads). Out of the box that is iCloud Drive › Downloads, so the file also uploads to iCloud and counts against your iCloud storage. Switch it to On My iPhone if you would rather keep clips local.

Photos never sees files in the Downloads folder on its own. Nothing is wrong when a video "isn't in my camera roll": it is in Files until you use Save Video, which copies it into the photo library. After that you can delete the Files copy to free space.

Safari on iPhone: gotchas we ran into

• View instead of Download. Tapping View opens the MP4 in a full-screen player without saving it. Go back and choose Download.
• Large files and the lock screen. Downloads continue briefly in the background, but a long 1080p replay can pause if you lock the phone or switch apps for several minutes. Keep Safari open until the arrow completes.
• iCloud storage full. If iCloud Drive is full and Downloads points there, Safari may fail silently. Change the download location to On My iPhone and try again.
• Private Browsing still saves. A private tab doesn't hide downloads. The MP4 still lands in the Downloads folder and stays there after you close the tab.

After the download

Saved videos keep the file name we give them, for example nasa_1234567890_1080p.mp4, which tells you the account, the post ID and the quality you picked. Photos drops the name, so rename it in Files first if you need to find the source later.

To send the clip on WhatsApp or iMessage, share it from Files or Photos. For very small files, pick 360p before downloading instead of compressing afterwards.

Other browsers on iOS

Questions people ask