Download X videos on Linux

Linux desktop + Firefox / Chrome / Chromium at a glance

Device / OS

Linux desktop (Linux)

Browser

Firefox / Chrome / Chromium

File lands in

~/Downloads (the XDG download directory)

Open your downloads

Ctrl+Shift+Y (Firefox), Ctrl+J (Chrome/Chromium)

Move to photos / gallery

Not applicable; files stay in ~/Downloads

Plays in

mpv, VLC, Celluloid; GNOME Videos needs H.264 codecs

Download an X video with Firefox / Chrome / Chromium on Linux desktop

1. Copy the X link. Share › Copy link on the post, or copy the address bar.
2. Paste and Extract. Paste on TwitterDownloaderX and press Enter.
3. Pick a quality. Click a button; the browser saves to its download folder.
4. Open the folder. Use the browser's downloads list or run xdg-open ~/Downloads.
5. Check the file (optional). Run ffprobe -hide_banner file.mp4 to see resolution, codec and bitrate.

Where the file ends up on Linux desktop

Browsers use the XDG download directory, usually ~/Downloads; xdg-user-dir DOWNLOAD prints it. Snap and Flatpak browsers write there too, through the desktop portal, but can't save to arbitrary folders unless you grant access.

If a sandboxed browser seems to save nothing, check the portal's file chooser: with “Always ask where to save” enabled it may open behind the browser window.

Firefox / Chrome / Chromium on Linux desktop: gotchas we ran into

• H.264 playback. X serves H.264 video with AAC audio. Some distributions don't ship H.264 decoding by default; install your distro's ffmpeg/codec packages or use mpv or VLC.
• Browser playback vs player playback. The in-page preview uses the browser's codecs, the saved file uses your player's. A preview that plays doesn't guarantee your default player can.
• MP3 button. Chromium-based browsers and Firefox 130+ support the WebCodecs audio decoding the MP3 button needs.
• Wayland clipboard. If the Paste button can't read the clipboard, paste with Ctrl+V into the box instead.

After the download

The file plays and edits in Kdenlive, Shotcut or Blender without conversion. To make a GIF or trim, ffmpeg works directly on the MP4; see the ffmpeg GIF guide.

Command-line users can copy the direct media URL from the result card and download it with curl.

Check what you downloaded

A quick way to confirm resolution and codecs before editing:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 \
  -show_entries stream=codec_name,width,height,bit_rate \
  -of default=nw=1 user_1234567890_720p.mp4

Downloading from the terminal

Next to every quality button is a link icon, Copy direct URL. It copies the address of the MP4 on X's media server, which you can fetch with any command-line tool, for example curl -L -o clip.mp4 '<copied URL>' or wget -O clip.mp4 '<copied URL>'. This is handy on headless machines or in scripts that archive your own posts. Broadcast replays are the exception: their direct URL is an HLS playlist of short segments, which our download step joins into one MP4, so use the normal button for those (or a tool such as ffmpeg that understands .m3u8).

Some distributions ship without a full H.264 decoder for licensing reasons. If the file won't play in the default player, mpv or VLC plays it out of the box.

Questions people ask