The Safest Way to Download Twitter (X) Videos on iPhone

You find a video on Twitter worth keeping, so you look for a way to save it, and you land on one of those free downloader sites. You paste the link, and the page erupts: ads everywhere, three different "Download" buttons, a pop-up swearing your phone has a virus. All you wanted was one video.

I'm Saif, and I've run TVDL since 2018. This exact mess is the reason it exists. So let me show you the calm way to save a Twitter video, and explain honestly how it works while I'm at it.

The short answer

TVDL is a free shortcut that lives on your iPhone. When you spot a video you want, you tap Share and pick TVDL, and it saves straight to your Photos alongside your other pictures and videos. There's no website to visit and no account to make.

If you'd rather not add anything, you can also paste a link into the Twitter (X) video downloader right here on our site. Either way it's free.

Why those free downloader websites feel so shady

I want to explain what's actually going on with that whole category of site. I'm not singling out any one of them. This is about the crowd as a whole.

Those sites run on ad money, so the more you click, the more they earn. That's why the page is crowded with buttons and pop-ups all competing for your tap. A few of the traps worth knowing:

• Fake buttons. The biggest, greenest "Download" button often isn't the real one. It might send you off to another site, or start downloading something you never asked for.
• Fake warnings. A pop-up tells you your phone has a virus, or that you've won a prize. It's not real. It's bait, meant to get you to tap.
• You don't know who's behind it. Every link you paste goes to a site run by a stranger, and you have no idea who they are or what they do with it.

Most of these sites probably aren't out to get you. The trouble is you can't tell the safe ones from the bad ones just by looking, and that's a lousy gamble to take over a single video.

What TVDL is, in plain words

TVDL isn't a website. It's a shortcut that lives on your iPhone, built with Apple's own Shortcuts app, so there's no third-party app to install. You add it once, and it's always there. When you want to save a video, you tap Share and pick TVDL, and the video lands in your Photos.

I built the first version in 2018 because I wanted to save a clip and couldn't find a way I trusted. Every option was either a shady website or an app that wanted half the permissions on my phone, so I made the thing I actually wanted to use. These days people use it to save more than 80,000 videos a day.

What actually happens to your video

Here's the honest part, because "just trust me" isn't good enough.

When you tap Share and pick TVDL, the video makes a quick stop through our system to get ready, then saves to your Photos. That stop lasts only a moment, and we never keep a copy. So no, it doesn't all happen purely on your phone. There's a brief step in the middle. But there's no account to make, and no one is looking at what you save.

How to save a Twitter video with TVDL

Once the shortcut is on your phone, and I'll cover that next, saving a video takes a few seconds:

1. Open the video on Twitter. Head to the video you want in the Twitter app, now called X. Any public video works.
2. Tap Share. The Share button sits under the video and looks like a small arrow. Tapping it slides a menu up from the bottom of the screen.
3. Pick TVDL. Tap TVDL in that menu. If you don't see it at first, swipe sideways or tap More, and you'll only have to find it once.
4. Let it save. TVDL gets the video ready and drops it into your Photos, right beside your other videos.

That's the whole thing, and after the first time it's second nature.

Setting it up the first time

Adding the shortcut is a one-time step. You give us your email, we send you a link, and you tap that link to add TVDL to your phone. Tap Add Shortcut when it asks, and you're done in about a minute. The email is only so we have somewhere to send the link.

One honest caveat: TVDL works on the iPhone and iPad, not on Android. It runs on Apple's Shortcuts app, and Android doesn't have that, so there's no version I can offer for it.

A couple of honest notes

Two things I'd rather you hear from me:

• It only saves public videos. If a clip is on a private account you can't see, TVDL can't see it either. It doesn't get around locks or privacy settings.
• Be fair about what you save. Keeping a video to rewatch or send to a friend is one thing. Passing someone else's work off as your own is another. When you share a clip, credit whoever made it.

If you ever get stuck, our help center walks through every step, and you can reach me there too.

That's really all there is to it. No ad-covered websites, no fake buttons, no pop-ups telling you your phone is broken. You tap Share, pick TVDL, and your video is in your Photos a moment later. Adding the free shortcut takes about a minute, and you can save your first Twitter video right after.