How to download videos on iOS with VLC Player

Downloading videos on iOS isn’t easy for lots of reasons; browsers on iOS don’t always have an option to save a video file even if they can play it, some browsers and apps are unable to access the storage on an iPhone or iPad and instead just save them to their own libraries, and many web apps that can directly download videos on a desktop don’t work on a mobile device. If you want to download videos on iOS, you can give VLC player a try.

There will be some limitations to this. This is not going to work for a YouTube URL. If you have an app that can download YouTube videos, get the URL that it generates, and use it instead. You are likely to have better luck. This will not work for torrents. This will also not work for live streams i.e., you won’t be able to capture them. The only thing that this works with is an actual link to a file and it is up to you to get one.

Download videos on iOS

First, get a download link for a video. Open VLC player and go to the Network tab. Tap on ‘Download’ and enter the link. Tap the download button. The download progress will be shown in VLC player and when it is complete, you can view the video offline.

To view the video, open the Files app on your iOS device and go to the VLC player folder. The video will be there. This video is on your device but it is NOT in the camera roll. If that isn’t a big deal, you’re done but, if you want to move the video to the camera roll, you can. It’s just one more step.

Tap and hold on the video (or tap it and access additional options), and in the menu that opens you will see a ‘Share’ option. Tap it, and the share sheet of actions will have a ‘Save video’ option. Tap the ‘Save Video ‘ option and the video will be saved to the camera roll.

At this point, you have two copies of the video; one in the camera roll and one in the Files app and they’re both taking up space. If you don’t have space to spare, you can delete the copy of the video in the Files app and use just the one in your camera roll. This is purely for saving space and nothing else.

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Fatima Wahab

Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014. Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks

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