Supported platforms

Which URLs work on Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

LiftMonkey supports five families of platforms: social (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), video (YouTube, TikTok), US broadcast news (CBS News, ABC News, NBC News), news portals (MSN), and listings (Airbnb). Each platform has specific URL shapes that work reliably; links that don't match those shapes come back with a "couldn't detect platform" message.

Broadcast news, TikTok, and YouTube are resolved by yt-dlp, which LiftMonkey uses as its extraction engine for those platforms and as a fallback for the social platforms when the primary path is blocked.

Twitter / X

URLs that work:

  • https://twitter.com/<user>/status/<id>
  • https://x.com/<user>/status/<id>
  • With or without www.

Media returned: single photos, multi-photo galleries (you pick which one to download), videos, and animated GIFs.

Known limitations: private/protected accounts cannot be extracted. Posts from suspended or deleted accounts return a "not found" error.

Facebook

URLs that work:

  • Classic post links: facebook.com/<page>/videos/<id>, /photos/, /posts/, /watch/
  • Reels: facebook.com/reel/<id>
  • Short share links: fb.watch/<id>
  • Modern share URLs: facebook.com/share/v/<id> (video), /share/p/<id> (post), /share/r/<id> (reel)
  • Mobile hosts (m.facebook.com) work the same as desktop.

Media returned: videos, photos, reels. If we hit a login wall we'll automatically retry against mbasic.facebook.com where possible.

Known limitations: posts restricted to friends-only or to a private group cannot be extracted. Some Watch videos occasionally return a lower-resolution progressive stream instead of the HD version.

Instagram

URLs that work:

  • Posts: instagram.com/p/<shortcode>
  • Reels: instagram.com/reel/<shortcode>
  • IGTV: instagram.com/tv/<shortcode>

Media returned: single photos, carousels (use the gallery picker), reels, and IGTV videos.

Known limitations: stories and highlights aren't supported. Private accounts cannot be extracted. Some carousels that mix video and photo may only return the photo items.

LinkedIn

URLs that work:

  • Share URLs: linkedin.com/posts/<slug>-share-<id>-<token>
  • Native posts: linkedin.com/posts/<slug>-ugcPost-<id>-<token>
  • Older activity share: linkedin.com/posts/activity-<id>-<token>
  • Feed URNs: linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:(activity|ugcPost|share):<id>

Media returned: single images, multi-image galleries (use the gallery picker), and videos when LinkedIn exposes a direct stream URL in the post's structured metadata. When a video URL isn't exposed, we fall back to the video's poster frame.

Known limitations: LinkedIn doesn't always expose direct video URLs in public metadata; for those posts we return the poster frame rather than the video file. Posts behind an auth wall can't be extracted.

YouTube

URLs that work:

  • Standard watch links: youtube.com/watch?v=<id>
  • Short share links: youtu.be/<id>
  • Shorts: youtube.com/shorts/<id>
  • Mobile hosts (m.youtube.com) work too.

Media returned: an MP4 with audio included. You'll see a quality picker showing the resolutions available for that video — 360p, 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K (2160p) are all supported.

Known limitations: 1080p and above take 30-120 seconds longer to prepare because they require muxing video and audio streams. Age-restricted, members-only, region-locked, or private videos cannot be extracted.

TikTok

URLs that work:

  • Canonical: tiktok.com/@<user>/video/<id>
  • Short share links: vm.tiktok.com/<token>, vt.tiktok.com/<token>
  • App share links: tiktok.com/t/<token>

Media returned: a progressive MP4 without watermark when available.

Known limitations: private accounts and region-restricted posts cannot be extracted. Live streams aren't supported.

Broadcast news: CBS News, ABC News, NBC News

LiftMonkey resolves short-form news video segments from all three major US networks. Paste a video page URL — article URLs without an embedded video won't work.

URLs that work:

  • CBS News: cbsnews.com/video/<slug>/ and city-scoped cbsnews.com/<city>/video/<slug>/ (New York, Los Angeles, etc.)
  • ABC News: abcnews.go.com/Video/<id> and section-scoped abcnews.go.com/<section>/video/<slug> (WNT, GMA, Nightline, etc.)
  • NBC News: nbcnews.com/<section>/video/<slug> (Nightly News, Meet the Press, NBC News Now, etc.)

Media returned: a progressive MP4 of the segment when available.

Known limitations: some segments are delivered as adaptive streams (HLS/DASH) that LiftMonkey doesn't yet support — you'll see a "no progressive MP4 available" error. Paid-subscription-only segments (live streaming cable feeds, some full episodes) cannot be extracted. News content is subject to stricter copyright than social posts; make sure your save is for personal reference only.

MSN

MSN is Microsoft's news and content portal — it carries video from many third-party publishers (TFL Studios, Newsweek, USA Today, The Weather Channel, sports networks, and others). LiftMonkey resolves MSN video pages specifically; paste the URL of the video page itself, not an article that happens to embed a video.

URLs that work:

  • Video pages: msn.com/<locale>/<section>/<subsection>/<slug>/vi-<id>
  • All MSN locales work (en-us, en-gb, fr-ca, etc.).
  • Tracking parameters like ?ocid=socialshare are tolerated.

Media returned: a 1080p progressive MP4 with the video's title, duration, publisher, and English closed-caption track recorded in metadata.

Known limitations: only video pages (/vi-) are supported. Article URLs (/ar-) won't extract even if they embed a video — MSN articles often surface a "related videos" sidebar and we'd rather decline than guess which one you meant. Slideshow (/ss-) and image-gallery (/ai-) URLs aren't supported in v1. MSN's video content is licensed from third-party publishers with their own copyright; save for personal reference only.

Airbnb

LiftMonkey resolves the photo gallery on an Airbnb listing page. Paste a room URL — search results, host profiles, and experience pages won't work.

URLs that work:

  • Listing pages: airbnb.com/rooms/<id>
  • Airbnb Plus listings: airbnb.com/rooms/plus/<id>
  • Country domains work too (airbnb.co.uk, airbnb.ca, airbnb.com.au, …).
  • Tracking parameters (?source_impression_id=…) and the #availability-calendar hash are tolerated.

Media returned: the listing's photo gallery (use the gallery picker to save individual photos, or Download all). When only the cover photo is exposed, you'll get a single photo.

Known limitations: Airbnb runs aggressive bot detection — if a listing comes back blocked, turn the residential proxy on and retry. Listing videos and floor-plan walkthroughs aren't supported in v1.

Personal use only. Airbnb listing photos are the host's (or Airbnb's) copyrighted marketing material, not your content. Save them for personal reference — for example, a place you've booked or are comparing — not for re-listing, redistribution, or any commercial use.

Something not working?

Platforms change their URL formats often. If a link you expect to work comes back as "couldn't detect platform," it's usually a new URL shape we haven't added yet. See Troubleshooting for what to do.