Why Reddit videos download without sound — and how to keep it

If you have ever saved a Reddit video and found it silent, the video was not broken and your speakers were fine. Reddit simply keeps the picture and the sound of its videos in two separate files, and many ways of saving a video only pick up one of them. This guide explains how that works and how to get a single MP4 with the audio in place.

How Reddit stores a video

Videos uploaded to Reddit are hosted on v.redd.it. Reddit does not serve them as one ordinary file. Instead it uses a streaming format called DASH: the video track and the audio track are separate files, and a small description file tells the player where each one is and which qualities exist. Reddit's player downloads both tracks and plays them in sync, so in the app or on the website you never notice.

The moment you try to save the video with a tool that expects a single file, the split becomes visible. The tool grabs the video track, which is a perfectly valid MP4, but the sound lives next door and never gets included. The result plays fine and is completely silent.

The guide on HLS and DASH explains these streaming formats in more depth.

How Videospeichern handles it

When you paste a Reddit link into the Reddit video downloader, Videospeichern reads the post, finds both tracks and joins them while the download runs. The picture and the sound are copied into one MP4 container without being re-encoded, so nothing is lost in quality and the file plays in any player. You receive one file, and it has sound.

This joining is done on request, as the file streams to you. Nothing is stored on a server afterwards.

Step by step

1. Copy the post link. In the Reddit app, tap Share under the post and choose Copy link. The app often produces a short link of the form reddit.com/r/…/s/…; that is fine, it is traced back to the post. On a computer, copy the address of the open post from the address bar. Links from old.reddit.com and redd.it work as well.
2. Paste it. Put the link into the paste bar on the Reddit downloader page. The Reddit chip confirms it was recognised. Tap Save.
3. Choose a quality. The result card lists the resolutions Reddit offers, with an estimated size for each. The top row is the sharpest.
4. Save. Tap the Save button of the quality you want. After a short countdown the download starts by itself.

The finished MP4 contains the audio. If you only want the sound, the MP3 · audio only row gives you just that.

When a Reddit video really has no sound

Sometimes the saved video is silent because the original is silent. Common cases:

• GIF posts. Reddit turns uploaded GIFs into short MP4 loops without an audio track.
• Videos uploaded without sound. Screen recordings and some phone clips simply have no audio.
• Muted uploads. The uploader removed the sound before posting.

In these cases the result card tells you that the item carries no audio track, and there is no MP3 row to choose. The guide on why some videos have no sound covers this across all platforms, not just Reddit.

Galleries and images

Reddit posts can also hold images and galleries. For an image post, Videospeichern offers the picture at its original size. For a gallery, every image gets its own card, and Save all as ZIP puts the whole set into a single archive. There is no need to open every image one by one.

Posts that cannot be saved

Some Reddit content is not reachable:

• Private communities. Posts in a private subreddit are only visible to approved members, and Videospeichern does not log in to Reddit.
• Removed or deleted posts. Once a post is removed, the video is usually removed with it.
• Videos hosted elsewhere. A post may only link to a video on another site. In that case paste the link of that site instead, if it is one of the supported platforms.

Reddit also rate-limits or refuses some networks from time to time. If a public post fails to load, wait a minute and paste it again; that usually solves it.

On a phone

The steps above work the same in a phone browser. On an iPhone, Safari puts the MP4 into the Downloads folder of the Files app; from there Share → Save Video moves it into Photos. On Android, Chrome saves it to the Download folder, where gallery apps find it. The guide on finding downloaded videos on iPhone and Android goes through both in detail.

A note on reuse

Reddit posts belong to the people who made them, and many videos shared on Reddit were originally made by someone else again. Saving a clip for yourself is one thing; posting it elsewhere is another, and the original creator's rights apply. See whether downloading social media videos is legal for the basic rules.