Save a video from a Dropbox share

A folder address and a file address are two different pastes

Dropbox hands out two shapes of link and they behave differently in the box above. One stands for a folder, a container holding a set of items and sometimes hundreds of them. The other stands for one file that somebody picked out and shared on its own.

Analyze reads one video at a time. A folder has no single video behind it, so a folder address comes back with an empty list. Open the folder in your browser, click the video you want, and copy the address that appears once that one item fills the screen.

The share page sits in front of the stored video

A Dropbox link opens a page rather than handing over a file. That page carries the file name, a player, and the owner's controls. The video is stored behind the page and reaches the player as a separate request that the page makes on your behalf.

Analyze reads the page the way a browser does and reports the video file the player is being fed. The row you get back is that file, with its height in pixels and its size in megabytes. You do not have to dig for a direct address yourself.

Links the owner has since switched off

Whoever shared the file keeps control of it after the address leaves their hands. They can delete the item, move it into another folder, rename it, or turn sharing off for good. Each of those ends the link for everyone holding a copy of it.

A switched-off share returns an empty list, the same answer a page with no video on it returns. Ask the sender to share the item again. Producing a fresh address takes them a few seconds and it is the only route back to the file.

Shares guarded by a password or an account

A Dropbox share can carry a password, and it can be narrowed to named people or to members of one team. In each of those cases the address opens a prompt instead of a video. Our servers read the page signed out with nothing to type, so the prompt is where the reading stops.

An empty result there is the correct answer rather than a fault on this site. Open the link in your own browser, clear the prompt with the password or the account the owner expects, and use the download control Dropbox puts on the page.

What one Dropbox video costs against the free limits

Every row prints the real size of the file. Material kept in a cloud folder tends to run long: a wedding edit, a recorded lecture, a camera original copied straight off a card. Files like those pass 150 megabytes without effort, and 150 MB is the ceiling on a single download for free use.

Free use also covers three downloads in a day, and the count goes back to three at midnight UTC. Pro removes the daily count, removes the size ceiling, and removes the ads. A prepared file expires on a short timer, so leave the tab open until the transfer finishes.

The file still belongs to the person who shared it

Somebody sent you the address for a reason: review this cut, keep the photos from the trip, watch the session you missed. Saving a copy for that reason is ordinary use of a share, and the saved copy then lives on your own device.

Passing the file to people the owner left out is a separate decision. Vidzilla has no connection to Dropbox and no view of who was meant to receive the link, so that judgement stays with you. One message to the sender settles most cases.

Related pages

• Shared links on Box and what they open
• A video shared through OneDrive
• Transfers that lapse after a few days
• Files kept behind a MediaFire page
• How Drive sharing permissions decide the answer