Reddit-hosted video is a special case: two streams, and only one of them usually has sound. pvdownloader is built to take the one with audio, and to refuse posts that merely link out to YouTube or Imgur. Support is native, so there is nothing to install first.
This guide covers that boundary, the silent-MP4 trap, and the anonymous API quirks that make a first attempt fail on a link that works a moment later. A shorter reference, including the FAQ, is the Reddit video downloader page.
What you need
Nothing beyond the app itself. Reddit is a native provider. Public posts need no account, and the app never asks for Reddit credentials.
Two optional extras exist in the app, and a plain Reddit download needs neither:
- FFmpeg — not required to save the hosted video. It only comes into it if a format later needs merging or converting, and the app tells you at that point.
- yt-dlp — not needed for Reddit-hosted video. It is for the 1,000+ sites that are not natively supported. A Reddit post that links out to YouTube is a YouTube download, not a Reddit one — and this provider will not pretend otherwise.
pvdownloader asks before it fetches either one. Neither is bundled with the installer.
Step 1 — Copy the post link
Copy the URL of the post from your browser’s address bar. The comments page and the short redd.it share link both identify a post; paste the one you have.
Reddit’s anonymous API refuses some first requests outright, so a link that fails once is worth trying again a moment later. In a few regions it will not succeed without a proxy at all.
Step 2 — Paste it into pvdownloader
Drop the link into the URL field. The app reads the post and reports its title, author and the stream it found before anything is written to disk.
If the video is hosted somewhere other than Reddit, this is where it says so. That is not a bug. Following an external link under the Reddit provider would mean quietly downloading from another platform, which is how you end up with a file that is not what the page promised.
Crossposts are the exception that looks similar and is not: a crosspost resolves to the original video, because the media is read from the parent post as well.
Step 3 — Download
Reddit videos are short and the quality ladder is thin, so there is rarely a decision to make. The stream is saved as it is served. Nothing is re-encoded.
The useful choice already happened for you: HLS over the plain MP4, whenever both exist.
Hosted video only, and why the stream choice matters
pvdownloader downloads video Reddit hosts itself, on v.redd.it. A post that links out to YouTube, Imgur, Streamable or anywhere else is out of scope here.
That limit is deliberate. The Reddit provider downloads Reddit video. If you want the YouTube clip a post is pointing at, that is a different provider — the YouTube downloader page, which needs the optional yt-dlp engine — not this one.
The second thing catches people out even when the video is hosted on Reddit. Reddit serves hosted video in two forms:
| Stream | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| HLS | Carries sound. This is the one pvdownloader prefers. |
| Progressive MP4 | Often a video-only fragment. A silent file that looks like a finished download. |
If you end up with a video and no sound, the HLS stream was not available for that particular post, and the MP4 was all that was left. It is worth reporting rather than assuming you did something wrong.
What will not work
A few cases fail on purpose, and mixing them up with a broken download wastes time.
- Off-site video. YouTube, Imgur and every other embed are not Reddit-hosted. The app says so.
- Private and quarantined subreddits. Those need an account to read at all, and pvdownloader does not sign in to anything. Public posts are the limit.
- A first request that is refused. Retry. If it keeps failing from your region, a proxy in Settings is the next thing to try — the app can send the scan and the transfer through HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 or SOCKS5.
A note on copyright
pvdownloader is a tool, and it does not decide what you are allowed to do with the result. Downloading a video does not grant you a licence to it.
A few situations where this is worth being careful:
- Your own uploads — no issue, and this is the single best way to keep a copy of work you have published.
- Creative Commons material — check the specific licence, because many CC variants still require attribution.
- Anything else — you need the rights holder’s permission, or a legal exception that applies where you live. Reddit posts are other people’s work even when they are easy to save.
The app does not strip DRM, does not bypass paywalls, and cannot download content that the platform refuses to serve you.