Can’t hear sound on Tumblr’s video player? Video failed to load? Want to save a clip to your computer? Solve all these problems at once! This won’t work with externally sourced videos like those from Youtube, XTube, or Vimeo.

This tutorial was done on Firefox, but this can also be done on Chrome and I’m assuming Safari.

1) Open the post containing the video in its own tab or window. You can’t download from your dashboard. The URL should say nickname.tumblr.com/post/123459209348 or whatever the number salad is.

2) Somewhere on the layout, right click. Select “View Page Source”. Do NOT select “View Page Info”. On other browsers, this might see be labeled as “source code”.

3) The code will pop up in a new window. Do a search (ctrl+f) for ‘mp4’, without the quote marks of course. You can also go to the toolbar, click ‘Edit’, then ‘Find’. Should look like this if done correctly.

4) Look above where ‘mp4’ is and you’ll see some text that starts off with http://. 

5) Highlight the phrase. Do NOT highlight anything that says x22. Make sure you do not have a slash at the end! Copy.

6) Paste into your URL bar. BEFORE you hit enter/go/load, add an ’.mp4’ without the quote marks. If your video doesn’t load, chances are you added the slash, you forgot the last character, or your internet is down.

7) After you hit enter/go/load, the URL will change (if it doesn’t, don’t panic). The video will start auto-playing, so pause it so you don’t spoil it! Right click on the video, and select Save Video As. Now just save it, download it, and open it! Ta-da!

8) Open and watch.  If you need a program to watch mp4 videos, you want VLC.

Credit for this idea goes to my friend who mentioned the concept casually in passing. I’m using a random person’s cat video because I think if I used a porno clip it would offend the 5 people on Tumblr who don’t like to see men having sex. Also, if you click my Tumblr…you’re gonna see nudity.