Reddit went live in 2005, built by two roommates a year out of university after their first idea was turned down. It was a bare list of links that people voted up or down, and for a long time it looked almost identical to that. The structure underneath, though, turned out to matter more than the appearance: anyone could start a subreddit, and each one made its own rules.
That is why it grew into something no other platform replicated. A question about a rare fault on a particular model of car gets a better answer there than anywhere else, because somewhere there is a community of two thousand people who care intensely about that exact model. Video came late, in 2017, and mostly serves those communities rather than sitting at the centre of the site.
The technical quirk everybody eventually runs into is that Reddit stores the picture and the sound of a video as two separate files and stitches them together in the player. Save the video naively and you get a silent clip. It is the single most common complaint about downloading from the site, and the reason most people go looking for a tool at all.
Getting a Reddit clip with its audio
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1
Copy the post link from Reddit
Tap Share on the post and choose Copy link. From a browser, take the reddit.com address out of the bar. Short redd.it links work as well, and so do links to a comment that contains a video.
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2
Enter the address above
Paste it into the field at the top of the page. It begins working the moment the text appears.
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3
Select a version with sound
The options are listed with their resolution and file size. Where Reddit holds a separate audio track it is combined for you, so what you take away plays with sound rather than in silence.
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4
Collect the file
Tap the row once it turns blue. Android saves to Downloads, an iPhone to the Files app, and the result needs no conversion afterwards.
The silent video problem
Reddit's player fetches two files at once, a video stream and an audio stream, and synchronises them as it plays. Nothing in the page ever contains a single combined file, which is why saving the video through a browser's right-click menu so reliably produces a clip with no sound at all.
| What you save | Result | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Right-click, save video | Picture only, silent | That is the video stream on its own |
| Screen recording | Sound, but poor quality | You are re-recording a playback rather than copying a file |
| Through this page | Picture and sound together | The two streams are combined before you download |
| A crosspost | Works, from the original | Crossposts point back at the post that hosts the file |
| Video hosted elsewhere | Use that site instead | Many Reddit posts merely embed another platform |
The last row is worth checking before assuming something is broken. A large proportion of video on Reddit is not Reddit's at all — it is a YouTube or Streamable player sitting inside the post, and the file belongs to that service.
Why people save Reddit clips
Deletion is constant and rarely announced. Users remove their own history in bulk, moderators clear posts that break a rule nobody outside the subreddit knows about, and accounts vanish taking every comment with them. A link saved to a list is not a copy of anything.
A lot of what people want is instructional. Subreddits built around a trade, a repair, a game or a technique accumulate short demonstrations that exist nowhere else, and those are exactly the clips wanted later on a phone in a workshop with no signal.
The rest is straightforward sharing. A clip that makes sense to someone who is not on Reddit travels far better as a file than as a link to a thread full of context they would have to read first.
Reddit download questions
Why do Reddit videos usually save without sound?
Because Reddit keeps the picture and the audio as two separate files and only joins them in its own player. Saving the video directly gets you one half of the pair. Here they are combined before the download starts.
Do redd.it short links work?
Yes. The share sheet produces them and they are treated the same as a full reddit.com address.
Can I save a video posted in a comment?
Yes, if it is hosted by Reddit. Copy the link to that specific comment and paste it.
What about private or quarantined subreddits?
Those need an account with access, so no. Nothing here logs in to Reddit.
The post shows a YouTube player, why does it not work?
Because the video is YouTube's rather than Reddit's. Open the underlying link and use the page for that platform instead.
Does it work with crossposts?
Yes. A crosspost points back at whichever post actually holds the file, and that is followed automatically.
Is there any quality loss from joining the streams?
No. The two existing streams are placed into one container without being re-encoded, so what you get is exactly what Reddit stored.
Where does the clip end up?
Downloads on Android, the Files app on an iPhone.
My Reddit link has stopped working.
The post or the account behind it has probably been removed, which happens often. A prepared link also expires if the page is left open a long while before you pick a version.
Am I allowed to save Reddit videos?
Much of the video on Reddit was made by somebody else and posted without their involvement, so the ownership question is murkier there than on most platforms. Keeping something for yourself is one thing; republishing it as your own is another, and that call is yours.