Facebook saved videos: desktop and app
Facebook's Saved section is in a different place on a computer than on a phone, works slightly differently in each, and is easier to use on the desktop for reasons that have nothing to do with the feature itself. If you are trying to get at saved videos and cannot find them, the odds are good you are simply looking in the wrong one.
On a computer
Go straight to facebook.com/saved. That address has been stable
for years and it is by far the fastest route — you can type it, bookmark it, or
keep it open in a tab.
If you would rather click: the left sidebar of the home page has a Saved entry, sometimes under "See more" when the sidebar is crowded with groups and shortcuts.
Filters run down the side. Choose Videos and the list becomes only videos, newest first.
On the phone app
Tap the menu — the three horizontal lines, bottom right on iPhone, top right on Android — then Saved. On some versions it sits behind "See more".
Filters are across the top rather than down the side. Tap Videos.
The list is the same list. What differs is the effort of moving through it.
Why the desktop is better for this
Neither version can search inside your saved items, so finding something means scrolling either way. But on a computer:
- you see far more items per screen, which matters when the only way to find something is to look at all of it;
- Ctrl+F searches the visible page — useless for the whole collection, but genuinely useful once you have scrolled a section into view;
- you can open several in background tabs and work through them, instead of tapping into one and back out;
- copying a link is a right-click rather than a share sheet.
That last point matters if you are trying to get videos out rather than just look at them.
What is the same in both
Three limitations follow you across:
- No search. Not on the phone, not on the desktop. Filters by type, ordered by date, and that is all.
- No text matching. Nothing searches the caption, let alone what was said in the video. If you remember a phrase from it, that memory is no help here.
- Nothing is kept. A save points at somebody else's post. Delete it, deactivate the account, go private, or have it removed for copyright, and your entry turns into a grey box on both devices at once.
Getting the list out
Download Your Information — Settings, then "Your information", then "Download your information" — is available on both, and easier to complete on a computer because the file it produces is easier to open there.
What you get is a list of links, not the videos. Every one points back at the post it came from, so it inherits every problem above: sign-in required, and nothing at all if the post is gone.
The version that works on both
AllMySaves keeps your own copy of a saved video and transcribes it, so the collection is searchable by what was actually said. That is the same archive wherever you open it — the website on a computer, the Android app on a phone — and it does not care which device you saved from.
On a phone the app puts AllMySaves in the share sheet, so keeping something is two taps from wherever you are watching. On a computer there is a desktop app, which saves the videos a browser on its own cannot.
An export from either device can be brought in all at once, which is the sensible way to start: get the copies made while the originals are still there.