How To Download Private Vimeo Videos

February 23, 2018 35 Comments

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Downloading private videos from sites such as YouTube and Vimeo is not always easy depending on how the settings on the published video are configured. It can, however, be done with some patience. These steps were accomplished via Internet Explorer 11, so yours may differ if using a different browser.

  1. Go to the actual video web page itself using Internet Explorer 11
  2. Press F12 to open Developer Tools
  3. Use Find in the upper right hand corner to search for the text: /config
  4. Copy the entire config_url string in quotes starting with https: until it ends with the long string of numbers and letters
  5. Open a new tab in your web browser
  6. Paste the string, hit the home key to go to the beginning of the string, and make these changes
  7. Find all the double slashes that look like \/ and replace them with just a single /
  8. Hit enter and save the .json file it offers you
  9. Open the .json file using Notepad
  10. Search for the text: video/mp4
  11. Copy the url string that is shortly after it in the text
  12. Paste that string into a new tab in your web browser and it should allow you to download the mp4 video file

It may be necessary to reload a few times to get the Vimeo site to dynamically generate the version of the web page that will have the right .json file that specifies the highest quality of the video possibly available. Sometimes I retrieve videos at 1080p, other times it ends up being lower quality like 720p and such.

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35 thoughts on “How To Download Private Vimeo Videos”

  4. There actually is no /config in the developper. This is a wordpress site from Sep 2018 that is using

    Is this the new way to prevent us downloading these videos?

  5. Never thought I’d have a use for internet explorer. Works great!
    It looks like depending on the link you select it will be in different quality. Instead you can search the .json file for “1080p” or whatever quality you want and download the link above it.

    1. In that instance, it sounds as if you do not have legitimate access to play the video in the first place. No way to download a video in that particular situation.

      1. The video WILL play in the page it’s embedded in, just not outside of that. So it appears that Vimeo recognises it’s not being streamed to the proper page where it was intended.

    1. Unfortunately the privacy on that video is set to where you must be logged into Vimeo with permission from the video’s author to view it. No way around that.

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