Download a video shared from Google Drive

Anyone with the link, or restricted: the whole page turns on this

Every file in Drive carries one of two general settings. Restricted means only the accounts the owner named can open it. Anyone with the link means the file answers to whoever holds the address, with no account involved at all.

Our servers arrive as a visitor with no Google account, which puts them in the second category or nowhere. If the owner chose anyone with the link, Analyze reads the video and lists it. If the file is restricted, the same address is a closed door and the list comes back empty.

What a restricted file hands back instead of video

A restricted file does not fail quietly. Drive answers with a request-access page, which is a real page that loads perfectly well and contains no video whatsoever. That is what our servers read, and an empty result is the honest report of it.

You can see the same thing yourself in one step. Open the address in a private browsing window, where your signed-in account carries no weight. Whatever appears there is close to what this tool receives, and a request-access screen tells you the answer before you paste anything.

Owners who allow viewing but block the download

Drive gives an owner a separate switch that stops viewers and commenters from downloading, printing, or copying. With that switch on, the file streams inside the Drive player and the download control disappears from the page.

Ask the owner to lift the restriction or to send you the file another way. That switch is a deliberate choice somebody made about their own material, and working around it is not what this page is for.

Large files, and the warning page Drive puts in the way

Drive holds the kind of files people cannot send by email: long recordings, camera originals, exports at full resolution. Above a certain size Drive stops scanning a file for viruses and shows a confirmation page before it serves anything.

That confirmation page is another page with no video in it. Where the file is public and small enough to be served straight through, the row you get carries its true size. Free use caps a single file at 150 MB, and long Drive recordings pass that line regularly.

Addresses that point at a list rather than a file

A shared folder in Drive is a listing of items, and a shared Doc, Sheet, or Slides file is a document rather than a media file. None of those has one video behind it, so none of them produces a row here.

Open the folder, click the video, and let it fill the Drive player. Copy the address in the bar at that point. That address names one file and it is the one worth pasting.

Free downloads, the daily count, and the timer

Free use covers three downloads a day and one file up to 150 megabytes. The count returns to three at midnight UTC. Pro removes the count, removes the size ceiling, and removes the ads.

Once a file is prepared it sits on a short timer and then expires, so save it while the tab is still open. The copy that lands on your device stays there with no connection needed afterwards.

Shared with you means shared for a purpose

People share Drive files to get something done: watch this recording, approve this cut, keep this footage for the archive. Keeping a copy for that purpose is what the share was for.

Vidzilla is not connected to Google and cannot widen a permission the owner set. If you are unsure whether a copy should travel further, the person who shared it can tell you in a sentence.

Related pages

• Videos shared from a Dropbox folder
• Saving a clip shared on OneDrive
• Box shares and the conditions attached to them
• Links that point at a MEGA file
• Collecting a WeTransfer file in time