Paste any Facebook Ads Library URL or ad ID to extract and download the video or image creative directly to your device. Free, no login required, instant download.
Example: facebook.com/ads/library/?id=1457638199042352
Keep what you find, then launch your own version
Saving a competitor's ad is research. Turning your response into twenty tested variants is the work. Volume Creatives handles the second half in one publish.
Find the ad in the Meta Ad Library
Open facebook.com/ads/library, search the brand, and click See ad details on the ad you want. The address bar now shows a URL containing ?id= followed by a long number, which is the ad's archive ID.
Copy the URL or the ID
Copy the full URL, or just the numeric ID after ?id=. Either works. The Paste button next to the field reads your clipboard if the browser allows it.
Extract
Press Extract. The tool fetches the ad's public creative and lists every file it finds with the type, the quality label (HD or SD for video) and a preview you can play or view before saving.
Download the file
Click Download on the rendition you want. The file is saved with the page name and ad ID in the filename, so a folder of saved ads stays searchable later.
You enter
You get
One HD rendition and one SD rendition of the same video, each with an inline player.
Used in the filename so the saved file is traceable to the advertiser.
Kept in the filename; paste it back into the Ad Library any time to see running dates.
Streams from Meta's CDN through a filename proxy; nothing is stored here.
Save the HD file, then go back to the Ad Library card and note the start date. A video that has been running for months is the one worth breaking down frame by frame; a week old ad is still a test.
| Ad type | What you get | What you do not get | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single video | MP4 in HD and SD where Meta exposes both | Captions burned in by Meta's auto caption feature | Pick HD; SD is a fallback when only one rendition is served |
| Single image | The full resolution image Meta stores for the ad | Any text overlay Meta adds on delivery | Usually a JPG; the library sometimes serves a resized rendition first |
| Carousel | One image or video per card that has media | Card headlines and links, which are copy not media | Cards are listed together and numbered in the filename |
| Text only or link ad | Nothing to download | There is no media object | Copy the primary text and headline from the library card |
| Dynamic product ad (catalogue) | Usually nothing, sometimes a template frame | Product images, which come from the catalogue at delivery | The library often shows a sample product, not a stored creative |
| Collection or Instant Experience | The cover video or image | The product tiles beneath the cover | Tiles are catalogue driven, not part of the stored ad |
| Ads with multiple versions | The media Meta returns for the ID you pasted | Every variant in one go | Each variant in the library has its own ID; extract them one at a time |
Based on what the Meta Ad Library publicly serves for each format. Where Meta assembles the creative at delivery time, there is no single stored file to fetch.
Open the Facebook Ads Library, search the advertiser, and click See ad details on the ad you want. The address bar now contains ?id= followed by a long number. Copy either the whole URL or just that number, paste it into the field above, and press Extract. The tool lists every media file it can find for the ad, with a preview and a Download button for each. That is the whole process, and for most single image and single video ads it takes a few seconds. The steps and table above cover what to expect from each format.
The downloader pulls the raw creative Meta serves for the ad: HD and SD video for video ads when both renditions are exposed, and the original resolution image for static ads. Carousel ads return each card that has media. Text only ads have nothing to download, and dynamic product ads assembled from a catalogue usually return nothing because there is no single stored file. Every download streams directly from Meta's CDN through a small proxy whose only job is to give the file a useful name: the advertiser's page name, the ad ID and a file number. Nothing is stored on this site.
Extraction depends on Meta serving the media publicly, and it does not always. When the tool returns an error or an empty result twice, the manual route works in any desktop browser and takes about a minute.
For a video ad:
mp4. If nothing appears when you play the video, try media or video instead.The Ads Library often serves several renditions of one video at different resolutions, and sometimes a video stream and an audio stream as separate requests. If the first file you save is small or silent, go back to the Network tab and try the next largest request; the rendition the player used for full playback is usually the one that carries audio. Playing the video to the end before looking at the list helps, because the player may switch to a higher quality rendition part way through.
For an image ad:
jpg or png; the library sometimes loads a resized preview first and the full file second.For a carousel, repeat the image steps for each card, or arrow through the cards with the Network tab open so every image request is captured in one pass.
A saved ad is only useful with its context. Before you close the library tab, note the ad's start date and whether it is still active; an ad that has run for months is the one worth breaking down, and the competitor research guide covers how to read those signals. Name the file so you can find it again (the tool already includes the page name and ad ID), and log the landing page it pointed at. Then look at the brand as a whole rather than one ad: the Brand Spy report shows the media mix, top CTAs and landing pages for everything captured from that advertiser, and the AI ad search finds similar ads across other brands by description.
The Facebook Ads Library is a public transparency tool: every active ad is viewable by anyone, and Meta keeps ads about social issues, elections and politics available for seven years. This downloader only accesses public creatives, one ad per request, for research and inspiration. Respect copyright: use competitor creatives to study angles, hooks and formats, not to copy them. Reusing another brand's footage, photography, music or copy in your own ads is both an infringement and a fast route to a rejected ad.
Found a winning format? Volume Creatives’ Ad Library tracks whole competitors, every ad, landing page and asset, and bulk launches your own tests across every placement in one click. See the creative library feature, and the creative testing guide for how to structure the test once your own versions are ready.
Viewing and saving ads for research is what the Ad Library is designed to allow; Meta publishes every active ad so anyone can inspect it. The creative itself remains the advertiser's copyrighted work, so you may study it, reference it in a brief, or show it in a teardown, but you may not reuse the footage, images, music or copy in your own ads. This tool fetches one public ad at a time on your request; it does not scrape the library in bulk.
The most common reasons are an ad that has stopped running and had its media removed, a dynamic product ad whose creative is assembled from a catalogue at delivery time, a text only ad with no media, or an ID copied from a page URL rather than an ad detail URL. Meta also rate limits requests and occasionally changes the page structure, in which case the extractor times out. If it fails twice, use the manual steps below.
Yes. The Meta Ad Library lists ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network under the advertiser's Page, including ads that only ran on Instagram. Find the ad in the library the same way, copy its ID, and extract. Organic Instagram posts that were never promoted are not in the library and cannot be pulled.
Sometimes. The Ad Library shows many inactive ads with their start and end dates, and if Meta still serves the media the extractor will return it. Media for older inactive ads is often removed, so the extraction returns nothing even though the ad card still exists. Ads about social issues, elections or politics are kept for seven years and tend to remain retrievable longer.
Meta serves video in several renditions and sometimes exposes only the lower quality one, or a video stream that was separated from its audio track. When you see both HD and SD, pick HD. When only SD appears or the file plays silently, the HD or combined rendition was not exposed for that ad at that moment; the manual DevTools method below sometimes finds it because the browser player requests the rendition that plays with sound.
Carousel ads usually return one file per card that has media, listed together. Collection and Instant Experience ads are harder: the cover video or image is typically retrievable, but the product tiles beneath it are loaded from a catalogue and are not part of the ad's stored creative.
The file streams straight from Meta's content delivery network through a small proxy that only adds a filename. Nothing you extract is stored on this site, and no account is needed. Filenames use the advertiser's page name and the ad ID so you can find the ad again in the library later.
Connect your ad account, drop in the creatives, and watch the batch land paused. Nothing spends until you say so.