How to download Vimeo videos

Figuring out how to download Vimeo videos is a great way to preserve high quality content. Vimeo is a great source for highly produced artistic videos with a much more film-like nature than what you find on YouTube. 

But if want to hold onto one of those clips, say, in a safe external drive where they can’t be deleted, you probably want to know how to download Vimeo videos.

And while some videos have their own download buttons (a setting the content creator enables), not all of them offer it. Fortunately for you, it’s really pretty easy to download stuff off Vimeo that the creators don’t want you to take.

How to download Vimeo videos

(Image credit: Vimeo)

1. On the web, copy the address from the video’s page

You could also right-click and copy a video link in Vimeo search results.

(Image credit: Vimeo)

2. Or get the address from the share sheet

Your Vimeo share sheet may look different.

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

3. Open vimeo-downloader

(opens in new tab)

in a web browser.

All of the sites that do this sort of thing are a little sketchy, so make sure you’re careful about not agreeing to notifications.

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

4. Paste the URL into the video address field

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

5. Click Submit

And close any pop-up windows for anything like “Download Ready FREE Multy App Search.”

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

6. Right-click Download Video and select Save link as

Or, long-press on your phone.

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

7. Confirm download

Feel free to rename the movie file.

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

7. Your video should start downloading

(Image credit: vimeo-downloader.com)

8. Locate your finished download

You’ve mastered how to download Vimeo videos. But seriously, support artists.

A note about protected videos

Vimeo uses Digital Rights Management tools so that video scraping applications, like the one we’ll use, cannot pull paywalled content.

MORE: How to Download YouTube Videos on Your Android Phone

Instead, such attempts will get you the trailer for the paid video, not the paid video itself. I tested this out on an event from wXwNOW, a subscription service for a German wrestling promotion that is hosted by Vimeo.

Regarding Vimeo’s Terms of Service

One bit of heads-up about the process: because Vimeo doesn’t want you to download the clips, you’ll need to think twice before doing this too often. I didn’t see any rules about saving videos without Vimeo’s consent in its guidelines section (opens in new tab), but that kind of action may be so obviously against its wishes that they may take action without warning.

Admittedly, this would likely require hundreds or thousands of instances of video stealing, as this kind of thing is rather common.