Vimeo is a popular video-sharing platform that allows users to upload, share, and view high-quality videos. Some Vimeo users choose to make their videos private, which means that they can only be viewed by people who have been given a direct link to the video. If you have a link to a private Vimeo video and want to download it, you may be wondering how to do so. In this tech support guide, we will walk you through the steps to download embedded private Vimeo videos.
Finding the Video's Source Code
The first step in downloading an embedded private Vimeo video is to locate the video's source code. To do this, follow these steps:
- Open the webpage that contains the embedded private Vimeo video.
- Right-click on the video and select "Inspect" or "Inspect Element" from the context menu. This will open the developer tools for your web browser.
- In the developer tools window, locate the
<iframe>tag that contains the Vimeo video. This tag will look something like this:
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video ID]" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The [video ID] in the src attribute is the unique identifier for the Vimeo video. Make a note of this ID, as you will need it later.
Extracting the Video's Direct Link
Once you have the video's source code, the next step is to extract the video's direct link. To do this, follow these steps:
- In the developer tools window, right-click on the
<iframe>tag and select "Copy" > "Copy element" from the context menu. This will copy the entire<iframe>tag to your clipboard. - Open a text editor, such as Notepad or Sublime Text, and paste the
<iframe>tag into the editor. - Replace the
httpsin thesrcattribute withhttps://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=. The modifiedsrcattribute should look like this:
src="https://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video ID]"
The modified <iframe> tag should look like this:
<iframe src="https://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video ID]" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Save the modified <iframe> tag to your computer as a plain text file. We will refer to this file as the "embed code" for the rest of this guide.
Now that you have the embed code, you can use it to extract the video's direct link. To do this, follow these steps:
- Open a web browser and navigate to the following URL:
https://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=[embed code URL]
Replace [embed code URL] with the URL of the embed code file that you saved in the previous step. For example, if the URL of the embed code file is file:///C:/Users/User/embed.txt, the URL that you would use is:
https://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=file:///C:/Users/User/embed.txt
This will return a JSON object that contains information about the Vimeo video, including the video's direct link. The direct link is located in the html property of the JSON object. It will look something like this:
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video ID]?h=2a57a6c5b5" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Make a note of the src attribute of the <iframe> tag, as you will need it in the next step.
Downloading the Video
Now that you have the video's direct link, you can download the video. To do this, follow these steps:
- Copy the
srcattribute of the<iframe>tag that you noted in the previous step. Thesrcattribute should look something like this:
https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video ID]?h=2a57a6c5b5
The [video ID] in the src attribute is the unique identifier for the Vimeo video. Make a note of this ID, as you will need it in the next step.
Now, you can use a download manager or a web browser extension to download the video. There are many different download managers and browser extensions available, so we cannot provide a comprehensive guide for all of them. However, we can provide a general guide for how to use a download manager or browser extension to download the video. Follow these steps:
- Open your download manager or browser extension and paste the
srcattribute that you copied in the previous step into the download manager or browser extension. This will initiate the download of the video. - Once the download is complete, you can play the video using a media player, such as VLC or Windows Media Player. If the video does not play, you may need to install a codec pack, such as K-Lite Codec Pack or CCCP, to play the video.
In this tech support guide, we have shown you how to download embedded private Vimeo videos. We hope that this guide has been helpful and that you are now able to download the Vimeo videos that you need. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you!
References
| Title | URL |
|---|---|
| Vimeo API: oEmbed | https://developer.vimeo.com/api/oembed |
| K-Lite Codec Pack | https://www.codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_standard.htm |
| CCCP | https://www.cccp-project.net/ |