Download a Reddit video with almost any tool and it plays back silent. This isn't a bug in your player. Reddit stores the video track and audio track as two completely separate files on their CDN. Their web player stitches them together in real time. Most download tools only grab one of the two streams and hand you half a file.
SaveThat fetches both streams and merges them before giving you the download link. One file, full sound.
Why Reddit splits video and audio
Reddit uses a CDN called v.redd.it to host user-uploaded videos. When you upload a video to Reddit, it gets transcoded into multiple formats and stored as separate DASH streams: one for video at various resolutions, one for audio. The Reddit player requests both and plays them in sync using adaptive bitrate streaming.
This approach is common in streaming infrastructure because it lets the player dynamically adjust video quality based on your connection without interrupting the audio. The side effect is that a "video file" URL from Reddit's CDN only contains video. The audio lives at a completely different URL that you'd never find just by looking at the page source.
A proper Reddit video downloader needs to know about both stream URLs and merge them before handing you the file. That's what SaveThat does.
How to download a Reddit video with sound
Step 1: Copy the Reddit post link
On mobile, tap the Share button on the post and tap Copy Link. On desktop, click Share on the post and copy the URL, or copy it from your browser's address bar.
The link should point to the post itself, something like reddit.com/r/subreddit/comments/abc123/. Not a comment permalink or a user profile.
Step 2: Paste into SaveThat
Go to the Reddit downloader and paste the link.
Step 3: Download
Tap the download link. You get a single MP4 with audio included. On iPhone it saves to Files → Downloads, on Android to your Downloads folder.
What about Reddit videos that link to other platforms?
Not all Reddit video posts use Reddit's own hosting. Some posts embed a YouTube video, link to a Streamable clip, or use another external host. In those cases, the Reddit post URL won't work and you need the direct URL from the source platform.
If the video plays in Reddit's built-in inline player without leaving the page, it's hosted on Reddit. If clicking opens YouTube or another site, use that site's URL with the appropriate downloader.
Reddit GIFs and the same problem
Reddit GIFs have the same split-stream issue. What Reddit calls a GIF is actually a short looping MP4 stored with separate video and audio streams in the same DASH format. Most GIF downloads from Reddit come out silent for the same reason video downloads do.
SaveThat handles GIFs the same way: fetches both streams, merges them, gives you a proper file. If the original Reddit GIF had no audio (some don't), you get a clean looping video file with no audio track.
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