Download social media videos in PHP

curl with http_build_query for the link — the value must be URL-encoded, and a link containing & will break a hand-built query string. CURLOPT_TIMEOUT keeps a slow source from holding the request; thirty seconds is above the API's own upstream budget.

<?php
function resolve(string $link): array {
    $ch = curl_init("https://api.saveapi.org/v1/download?" . http_build_query(["url" => $link]));
    curl_setopt_array($ch, [
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 30,
        CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER     => ["Authorization: Bearer sk_live_xxxx"],
    ]);
    $body = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return json_decode($body, true) ?? ["success" => false, "error" => ["code" => "UPSTREAM_ERROR"]];
}

Every response carries the same array, one entry per file in post order, each with a type. Branch on type rather than assuming a video: a TikTok slideshow and an Instagram carousel come back as image entries.

$data = resolve("https://www.instagram.com/reel/ABC123/");

if (!$data["success"]) {
    throw new RuntimeException($data["error"]["code"]);
}

foreach ($data["medias"] as $media) {
    echo $media["type"], " ", $media["url"], PHP_EOL;   // video | image | audio
}

CURLOPT_FILE writes the download straight into a handle. Loading a 4K reel into a PHP string is the fastest way to hit memory_limit; a stream never does.

// Faylni diskka oqizish — xotiraga yuklamasdan
$out = fopen("video.mp4", "wb");
$ch  = curl_init($data["medias"][0]["url"]);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [CURLOPT_FILE => $out, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 120]);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($out);

UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT and UPSTREAM_ERROR are worth one more attempt and cost nothing. PRIVATE_CONTENT, MEDIA_NOT_FOUND and UNSUPPORTED_PLATFORM are final — the second call gives the same answer and, for the billed ones, spends another 0.1 credits. Act on the code, never on the message text.

One retry, after a short sleep, only for the two retryable codes. Wrap this in your own queue if you resolve in bulk; the per-minute limit is in the response headers as X-RateLimit-Remaining.

$retryable = ["UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT", "UPSTREAM_ERROR"];

$data = resolve($link);
if (!$data["success"] && in_array($data["error"]["code"], $retryable, true)) {
    sleep(2);
    $data = resolve($link);      // faqat bir marta, faqat shu kodlar uchun
}