How to save a media file you are entitled to download

What this tool is

This is a download helper for files you already have the right to download and can already link to directly. You paste a link that ends at a media file, the tool tells you what the host says about it, you confirm you are entitled to it, and your browser saves it.

It is deliberately narrow. It does not search, it does not look inside web pages to find video, and it does not know anything about any particular platform. If a link does not point straight at a file, this is not the tool for it.

What a direct media link looks like

A direct link ends at the file itself. Opening it in a browser starts playing or downloading the file rather than showing a page with a player, comments and a sidebar.

A page URL is the opposite: it points at a document that happens to contain a player. Turning one into the other means inspecting the platform’s internals, which is the line this tool does not cross.

1. A direct link: https://files.example.com/recordings/standup-2026-01.mp4
2. A direct link: https://cdn.example.org/audio/episode-14.m4a
3. Not a direct link: a page on a video platform showing a player
4. Not a direct link: a share link that opens an app

Where legitimate direct links come from

In practice most people arrive here with a link from their own storage or their own organisation. A file in your own cloud storage with a share link enabled. A recording your conferencing tool produced. A podcast enclosure from an RSS feed, which is a direct media URL by design. An asset on a site you run. A press kit or dataset published for download. Creative-Commons or public-domain media from an archive that serves files directly.

What these have in common is that the publisher intended the file to be fetched directly. That is the case this tool serves.

Using it

Nothing is contacted while you type. The line under the box is produced by checking the text locally: it confirms the link is https and that the host is not a private or internal address. Only the two buttons reach the network, and each says so.

1. Paste the direct link into the box.
2. Select "Check link". The tool makes one request for the file’s headers and shows you the host, the type and the size before anything is transferred.
3. Read what the host reported. If the type is not audio or video, the link probably points at a page rather than a file.
4. Tick the confirmation that you own the media or are authorised to download it. The download button stays disabled until you do.
5. Select "Download". Progress is real, and "Cancel" genuinely stops the transfer and discards the partial file.
6. Select "Save to your device" to write the file to your downloads folder.

Why a download sometimes fails, and why that is correct

Browsers do not let one website read files from another unless the second site opts in, by sending a header called "Access-Control-Allow-Origin". Most media hosts do not send it, because they never expected another site to fetch their files with script.

When that happens, the download fails. That is the browser protecting the host, and it is working as intended.

The obvious workaround is to route the file through a server that is not bound by the rule. This tool will never do that. A server that fetches any URL a visitor names is an open proxy: it can be pointed at private addresses inside the hosting network, it becomes someone else’s bandwidth, and it puts your file on a machine you do not control. The tool the ToolAcre team reviewed before building this one did exactly that, with no restrictions of any kind. That is the reason this product has no server.

When a download is refused, use your browser’s own "Save link as…" on the link. The browser is not subject to the same rule when you ask it directly, and the file goes straight to your device.

What happens to your link

Nothing is recorded. The URL you paste stays in the page. It is not logged, not stored, not sent anywhere for analysis, and not included in any usage statistic — there are no usage statistics.

The only host contacted is the one in your link, and only when you press a button. "Clear" drops the link, the downloaded bytes and the reported details from the tab.

Questions

Limitations

• It accepts direct https links to a media file only. Page URLs from video platforms are not supported.
• It does not bypass DRM, authentication, paywalls, CAPTCHAs, or any other access control.
• It contains no platform extractor, no scraping, and no signature or cipher handling.
• Many hosts refuse cross-origin reads, so downloads will sometimes fail. This is expected, is explained when it happens, and is never worked around.
• There is no server proxy, and one will not be added.
• The file is held in browser memory while downloading, so very large files may fail on a phone. Use the browser’s own "Save link as…" for those.
• No cookies or credentials are sent, so private or sign-in-protected media is out of reach by design.
• Private, loopback and link-local addresses are refused, as are http, file, data, blob and javascript URLs.
• It cannot resume an interrupted download, even where the host reports that byte ranges are supported.