How to Post a Facebook Live Video on YouTube – Stonemaier Games

How to Post a Facebook Live Video on YouTube

[Update: Facebook now makes this super simple! After Facebook processes the live video, click on it so it fills your screen, then click on the three dots at the upper right of the screen. Select download, then right click on the new video that appears and choose “save as.” That’s it!]

For 18 months now, I’ve been hosting weekly, one-hour Facebook Live sessions on the Stonemaier Games FB page. It’s my preferred method of live video. However, not everyone wants to watch videos on Facebook (live or otherwise). Plus, there’s an element of permanent discoverability on YouTube that Facebook just doesn’t replicate (it’s why I’ll only send review copies of games to livecasters if they also post the video on YouTube).

I previously tried to transfer a FB live video to my YouTube channel, but I was unsuccessful. But now, thanks to Dusty at The Mill, I know how to download a Facebook Live video (and then upload it to YouTube–that’s the easy part). It doesn’t result in a high-definition video, but that’s fine–it actually makes the whole process a lot faster, as the video isn’t too big.

Here are Dusty’s instructions on how to get your Facebook Live video onto YouTube (with some edits by me):

1. Open Chrome web browser (I’m guessing there’s a way to do the following on other browsers, but some of the commands may be different on them)

2. Go to your Facebook page.

3. Click Videos on the left sidebar.

4. Click the weekly livecast that you want to download.

[UPDATE: This is where–thanks to Phoebe’s suggestion in the comments–you can just copy and paste the URL on downvids.net or getfvid.com and skip the remaining instructions.]

5. In the browser toolbar, change the www. to m. (You should now be in mobile view.)

6. Press Ctrl+Shift+C. (This opens web developer tools.)

7. Click on the video itself. When you mouse over it, you should notice that it turns blue.

8. In the code gibberish on the right hand side, you should notice that you’re now seeing the content of a <video> tag. In that <video> tag you’re going to see a line that says src=https://scontent… etc. etc. Right click on that scontent src link and select open in a new tab (or copy and paste).

9. The video will now open in a new tab, but you’ll see three dots vertically aligned on the video in the bottom right hand corner. If you click it, one of the options will be ‘download’.

10. After the download is complete, you can upload the video to YouTube as you normally do. Thanks to a tip long ago from Ed Baraf at Pencil First Games, I like to add my own image for the video instead of a default thumbnail, especially for a low-res video like this:

That’s it! Big thanks to Dusty for walking me through these steps–I really appreciate it. Perhaps there’s a more automated way to do it–if you know of a way, feel free to share in the comments!

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20 Comments on “How to Post a Facebook Live Video on YouTube

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  1. Wow, that’s a lot of steps, good to hear there’s an update that makes it easier (although it still does not sound intuitive).

    “there’s an element of permanent discoverability on YouTube that Facebook just doesn’t replicate” – that’s a really interesting statement. Is there challenges or downsides you have come across using Facebook Live for your weekly live sessions or rolling realms live plays?

    1. It’s much easier than it once was to download a Facebook video, fortunately. There are still some issues with the video starting–I get the “loading screen of death” around 25% of the time when I try to create such a video in the Rolling Realms Facebook group.

      I would say the main issue that happens on my Wednesday livestreams is that if I’m not quick enough to answer a question, sometimes it scrolls past me and I can’t go back to it. I’m not sure why this auto-scrolling function is there at all–I’m recording on a PC, so it’s very easy for me to scroll down the comments if I need to skip some.

  2. Downloading and capturing online video that is available on various sites and is not available for most. This tool helps you easily download these videos and store them on a computer system.

  3. […] your Facebook Live on YouTube, LinkedIn as a video, and even slice up a 10-minute Live into smaller, shorter video pieces to utilize for social network […]

  4. All you do is go to the FB live video click on it to play then click the 3 dots top right and code download video! Save it to your computer then simply go to YouTube and upload it! Vuala!

  5. I always worry about these third party sites if I’m downloading something I don’t want like a virus or something

  6. I use DownVids to download Facebook videos, and it’s super easy.

    You can just go to downvids.net and copy in the link to the Facebook video, then click download and there’s no messing around with the source code!

    1. Thank You so much Phoebe Wild….I just tried it your way and BAMM, I uploaded in less than 5 mins…!!! I am very happy !! Thanks again!

    1. Oh, I just use InDesign for that. My web developer created a template for me to use–I think any graphic designer can do that for you. :)

  7. I’m really glad it helped, Jamey. And I hope someone comes through and goes ‘oh my gosh, there is a much easier way!’ .. so long as it isn’t a questionable website or browser plugin. :)

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