How to Save a Facebook Live Video

Finished a killer Facebook Live and now wondering where that valuable video went? Don't let your best content vanish after the broadcast ends. This guide shows you exactly how to save, download, and repurpose your Facebook Live videos, turning a single stream into a library of content you can use everywhere.

Why You Should Always Save Your Facebook Live Videos

Going live is a fantastic way to engage with your audience in real-time, but the value of that content shouldn't stop when the broadcast does. Saving your live videos provides a raw asset that can be polished and reused in countless ways. By not saving them, you're leaving a massive amount of marketing potential on the table.

Here’s why it’s a non-negotiable step for any serious creator or brand:

• Create a Content Goldmine for Repurposing: Your hour-long Q&A or product demo is packed with smaller, shareable moments. Saving the video allows you to chop it up into short clips for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok. You can pull out key quotes for graphics, get a transcript for a blog post, or use the audio for a podcast episode.
• Build an Evergreen Content Library: What was live and fleeting can become a permanent, searchable asset. Upload your saved live sessions to YouTube or your website as educational tutorials or behind-the-scenes content that new followers can discover weeks or months later.
• Have a Reliable Backup: Platforms change, glitches happen, and content can sometimes disappear. Having a local copy of your best videos on your own hard drive means you always own and control your content, regardless of what happens on Facebook.
• Analyze and Improve Your Performance: Re-watching your own live streams is one of the best ways to get better. You can see which jokes landed, which parts of the presentation engaged your audience most (check the comments and reactions!), and where you could tighten up your delivery for next time.

How to Save Your Own Facebook Live Video After It Ends

Facebook makes it fairly simple to download your completed live videos directly from your page or profile. The process varies slightly between desktop and mobile, so here’s how to do it on both.

On a Desktop Computer

Using a computer is often the easiest and most reliable way to get a high-quality copy of your video. Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Facebook Page or Profile where you went live.
2. From the menu on the left (on a Page) or the tabs under your name (on a Profile), click on the “Videos” tab.
3. Find the video you want to save. Sometimes it will be in the "Live" sub-folder or just under "Your Videos."
4. Hover over the video and click the three-dot icon (...) that appears in the top-right corner of the video post.
5. From the dropdown menu, select "Download video."

The video will begin downloading to your computer as an MP4 file, typically saved in your "Downloads" folder. That’s it! You now have a high-resolution copy ready to be edited or re-uploaded elsewhere.

On a Mobile Device (iPhone or Android)

If you're on the go and want to save the video straight to your phone, the process is just as simple, though the menu options can sometimes feel a bit hidden.

1. Open the Facebook app and go to your Page or Profile.
2. Go to your "Videos" tab and locate the live broadcast you want to save.
3. Tap to open the video so it's playing in the full-screen viewer.
4. Tap the three-dot icon (...) in the top right corner of the screen.
5. In the menu that pops up, look for the "Save video" or "Save to phone" option. The wording may vary slightly between iOS and Android.

This will save the video directly to your phone’s camera roll or gallery, making it easy to then upload it into another app like CapCut or Splice for quick editing.

Pro Tip: Automatically Save Future Live Videos to Your Phone

Why do it manually when you can set it up to happen automatically? If you primarily go live from your mobile device, there's a setting you can enable before your broadcast that will automatically save a copy to your phone as soon as the stream ends. This is a lifesaver for busy entrepreneurs and content creators.

Here's how to turn it on:

1. Open the Facebook app and start the process of going live (tap "What's on your mind?" and then select "Live video").
2. On the setup screen, before you tap the "Start Live Video" button, look for the icons along the side or bottom of your screen. Tap the magic wand icon (Effects).
3. At the bottom of the effects drawer, tap the settings (gear) icon in the bottom right corner.
4. You should see a toggle switch that says "Save to device." Make sure this is turned on (it should be highlighted in blue).

Once enabled, every live video you broadcast from that device will automatically save a copy to your phone’s camera roll when it's done. You’ll never have to worry about forgetting to download it again.

How to Download Someone Else's Public Facebook Live Video

Sometimes you might want to save a public live video from a colleague, a collaborator, or a creator you admire for reference. Before you do, an important note: always respect copyright and intellectual property. Only download videos if you have permission or for personal reference (like analyzing a competitor's strategy). Do not re-upload someone else's content as your own.

Since Facebook doesn't provide a direct "download" button for other people's videos, you'll need to use a simple browser workaround. This "mbasic" method is one of the safest and easiest ways to do it without relying on third-party websites.

1. Open the Facebook video you want to save in a web browser (like Chrome, Firefox, or Safari) on your desktop computer.
2. In the URL bar at the top of your browser, you'll see a web address that looks something like this:
   https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1234567890
3. Click into the URL bar and change the "www" to "mbasic". Don't change anything else. The new URL should look like this:
   https://mbasic.facebook.com/watch/?v=1234567890
4. Hit "Enter." This will reload the page in a simplified, old-school mobile version of Facebook.
5. Click on the video to play it. It will open in a new tab by itself, without any of the Facebook interface around it.
6. Right-click on the video itself and select "Save video as..." or "Download Video As..."
7. Choose where you want to save the MP4 file on your computer and you're good to go.

Now The Fun Part: Repurposing Your Saved Live Video

You’ve done the hard part - planning and executing a great live video. Now, let’s get the most mileage out of it. With your saved video file, you can break it down and distribute it across every platform.

• Create Vertical Short-Form Clips: Use an editing app to find the most compelling 30-60 second segments - a great tip, a funny moment, or a powerful user testimonial. Crop the video to a vertical 9:16 aspect ratio and add captions. Now you have a handful of perfect clips for Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.
• Upload the Full Replay to YouTube: Edit your saved video to trim the beginning and end (where you might have been waiting for viewers to join). Add a proper title, description, and thumbnail, and upload it to YouTube as a permanent resource.
• Strip the Audio for a Podcast: If your live video was an interview, a Q&A, or an educational session, the audio alone can be valuable. Use an audio editing tool to clean it up and release it as a podcast episode.
• Create Quote Graphics: Go through your video and pull out the best one-liners or key pieces of advice. Use a tool like Canva to turn these quotes into branded images you can share on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Threads.
• Write a Blog Post: Use an automated transcription service (like Descript or Otter.ai) to turn your video into text. Clean up the transcript, organize the key points with headings, and you’ve got a detailed blog post written in half the time.

Final Thoughts

Saving your Facebook Live video is a simple technical step that unlocks a world of content opportunities. It lets you move beyond single-use broadcasts and toward building a robust library of valuable, reusable assets that can power your entire social media strategy.

Once you’ve repurposed your live video into dozens of clips, graphics, and other assets, keeping everything organized and scheduled can feel like a whole new challenge. At Postbase, we built our platform specifically for today's video-first marketing. Our visual content calendar helps you see where every one of those repurposed clips is going, while our modern scheduler lets you post them across all your accounts - from Reels to TikTok to YouTube Shorts - without the headaches legacy tools give you.