Friday, July 28, 2017

Free Download Password Protected or Private Vimeo Videos from Chrome - NO software, tool or extension required

The information provided here is meant only for those actually have an appropriate right to use the content of those videos. It is reader's responsibility to make sure that he/she is not misusing the content.

I recently dug into the process of downloading password protected videos from Vimeo (of course he had the password and was allowed to download the content, being a part of the closed group community for which the video was uploaded). I have attached some screenshots as well for convenience.

You do not need any other software, tool or extension for downloading. I have only tested this approach for Google Chrome, but this should work similarly well for other browsers as well with only a slight modification.


Enter the Password

Once you type or copy the web link in your browser, it will first ask for the password (which you would know), with a message displayed - "This video is private". Enter the password and the video will start playing.



Inspect the Page

Now, while the video is playing, you can either right click on the page or the video and select the option "Inspect". Alternatively, you can press "Ctrl+Shift+I" to do the same.



This will open a side-panel or another window showing developer options.


Please make sure that you select the "Elements" tab in this display.

Search the Target

Now you need to search the url which will lead us to the direct download of the video. For this, press "Ctrl+F" and type "config-url" in the search bar. When you press the "Ctrl+F" key the search bar opens up below the Elements tab. It will highlight the searched term (in yellow) as shown below. You need to copy the url provided there starting from "https:// .... 1751" in this example. (Do not copy the inverted commas, when you double click on the url, it should automatically copy highlight the url and you should be able to simply press "Ctrl+C" or copy by right clicking.).




Choose the Resolution

Now open the url which you just copied in a new browser tab/window. You will see some text. Now again press "Ctrl+F" to search "mp4" in the page. You will see different versions, like, 720p, 360p etc. near the highlighted keyword. Choose what resolution you need to download. Let us say you want 360p version (as shown below), now copy the url (highlighted in yellow below) corresponding to this version and you are almost done.


Download the Video

Now copy the final url you just copied in a new browser tab/window. It will now start playing the video in your browser after you press the play button. You can now right click and save the video as you like as shown below.




I hope this information will help you. If you have any comments or suggestions, please comment below.
Happy Downloading! Cheers!!