When someone turns on Protect your posts, X shows their videos to approved followers and to nobody else. A website asking X for that post is nobody: it gets the same answer a stranger gets.
Why no tool can get around it
There is only one way to read a protected post: be signed in as an account the author approved. A site that offered this would have to hold such an account, or hold yours. Both are a problem, and the second one is your problem.
So if another service claims it can save videos from private accounts, look at what it asks for first. If the answer is your X login, the video is not what it is collecting.
What you can actually do
- Ask the author. X has a download button of its own on some posts, and the person who posted it can always send you the file directly.
- Check you are not looking at a repost. If a public account quoted the protected one, the quote is public but the video still belongs to the protected post.
- Being a follower yourself does not help us. Your account is signed in on your phone, not on our side, and we would rather keep it that way.
Being approved later does not unlock it here
If the author accepts your request tomorrow, you will see the video in the app, and we still will not. The answer only changes if the account itself stops being protected.