blogpost linkedin video downloader

LinkedIn Live Video Downloader

This repository contains a script that I've used to download LinkedIn Live videos.

To use the script, modify the PUBLIC_URL and VIDEO_ID variables in linkedin.sh.

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title: Downloading LinkedIn Live Videos published: false description: tags: linkedin,hack,download

I gave a talk recently at a community meetup where they were using the fancy new LinkedIn Live to stream the event. Post-event, I decided I wanted a copy of the video but LinkedIn didn't seem to agree with me that I should have a copy of my video. Also, none of the existing video downloader websites worked, and none of the advice given by other folks online did too. Apparently LinkedIn had changed the way they did videos. So. The network tab it was!

This short post documents how I managed to download a LinkedIn video with a little hacking on the Chrome Console and shell scripts. You should be comfortable with the command line for things to work out.

Getting to the Target

So you've seen a LinkedIn post with a video that you want locally available. We begin by clicking on the video so that it opens up in a theatre-like mode. For my video, the URL looked like:

https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:%UGC_POST_ID%/

Observing the Target

Once the page is loaded, do not hit play - open the Chrome Console and go to the Network tab. Now hit play and look out on the Network tab for a manifest(format=m3u8-aapl-v3) call. This call seems to be making a request to retrieve the possible variants of the video and the response should look similar to:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=351536,RESOLUTION=340x192,CODECS="avc1.64000d,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(200000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=709236,RESOLUTION=384x216,CODECS="avc1.640015,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(550000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1015836,RESOLUTION=512x288,CODECS="avc1.640015,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(850000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1526836,RESOLUTION=704x396,CODECS="avc1.64001e,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(1350000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2395536,RESOLUTION=960x540,CODECS="avc1.64001f,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(2200000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=3724136,RESOLUTION=1280x720,CODECS="avc1.64001f,mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(3500000)/Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=138976,CODECS="mp4a.40.5"
QualityLevels(128000)/Manifest(audio_und,format=m3u8-aapl-v3)

The above manifest is used to determine what QualityLevel should be streamed when the BANDWIDTH is above a certain rate. We'll see how that is used later.

Meeting the Target

The next request of interest which should come shortly after the above request is completed should have the name Manifest(video,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und). Clicking on it and going to the Response tab, you should see a huge file that consists of lines like these:

...
#EXTINF:2.000000,no-desc
Fragments(video=%FRAGMENT_ID_1%,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXTINF:2.000000,no-desc
Fragments(video=%FRAGMENT_ID_2%,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
#EXTINF:2.000000,no-desc
Fragments(video=%FRAGMENT_ID_3%,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)
...

These apparently define the list of video fragments that stream through your browsers to form the full video.

Looking slightly below the above request, you'll find network calls named Fragments(video=%FRAGMENT_ID%,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und). Well, doesn't that look familiar?

Check out the full URL of the call (right click on row, copy as cURL) of those requests and you should find it resembles the following format:

https://streamwus2-livectorprodmedia11-usw22.licdn.com/%UUID%/%SOME_VIDEO_ID%-livemanifest.ism/QualityLevels(2200000)/Fragments(video=%FRAGMENT_ID%,format=m3u8-aapl-v3,audiotrack=audio_und)

Notice the QualityLevels and Fragments. This is the call that retrieves the fragments of data that are collated to form your video.

Obtaining the Target

So we now know how the video is being streamed, we can replicate this minimally by:

1. Visit the video page, open network tab
2. Look out for call to manifest..., note the QualityLevel
3. Look out for the subsequent call to Manifest..., copy the URL as a cURL command
4. Referencing the QualityLevels from step 2, modify the URL in the cURL request so that it's of the highest quality
5. Run the cURL command and pipe it to a manifest file.
6. You can extract all the fragment IDs using cat ./manifest | grep -v '#' | cut -f 2 -d '=' | cut -f 1 -d ',' > ./fragment_ids
7. Iterate through the list of fragments and issue a cURL request for each, piping the output to a file incrementally. That would look like:

touch video.mp4
while read FRAGMENT_ID; do
  echo 'processing ${FRAGMENT_ID}';
  curl ... >> video.mp4
done <./fragment_ids;