Download social media videos in n8n with an HTTP Request node

In n8n go to Credentials → New → Header Auth. Name: Authorization. Value: Bearer followed by your key. The credential is encrypted at rest and never appears in the workflow JSON, which matters the moment you export or share the workflow.

Method GET, URL https://api.saveapi.org/v1/download, Authentication → Generic Credential Type → Header Auth, pick the credential. Turn on Send Query Parameters and add one parameter, url, with an expression pointing at the incoming link. The node encodes the value for you — do not build the query string by hand.

// HTTP Request node
{
  "method": "GET",
  "url": "https://api.saveapi.org/v1/download",
  "authentication": "genericCredentialType",
  "genericAuthType": "httpHeaderAuth",      // Header Auth credential from step 1
  "sendQuery": true,
  "queryParameters": {
    "parameters": [{ "name": "url", "value": "={{ $json.link }}" }]
  }
}

The API answers 200 with success: true and medias[], or an error status with success: false and a stable error.code. A Code node turns that into n8n items: one item per media on success, one error item otherwise. Downstream nodes then see a flat list with type and url, which is the shape every other node wants.

// Code node — one item per media, or one error item
const data = $input.first().json;

if (!data.success) {
  return [{ json: { failed: true, code: data.error.code, message: data.error.message } }];
}

return data.medias.map((media, index) => ({
  json: {
    index,
    type: media.type,          // "video" | "image" | "audio"
    url: media.url,
    title: data.meta?.title ?? "",
  },
}));

For Telegram, a Telegram node with Send Video (or Send Photo when type is image) takes the url directly — Telegram fetches it. For Drive, S3 or a database, add a second HTTP Request node with the media url, set Response Format to File under Options, and pass the binary on. The API never proxies the file, so this fetch goes straight to the platform's CDN.

Open the HTTP Request node's Settings and enable Retry On Fail with a wait of a few seconds — but only for the codes that a retry can fix. UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT and UPSTREAM_ERROR are worth a second attempt and cost nothing; PRIVATE_CONTENT and MEDIA_NOT_FOUND are final and cost 0.1 credits each time. Put an IF node on the error code before any loop, and keep the workflow's rate under the key's per-minute limit.