FBReelz

FBReelz is a headless-friendly toolchain for:

• Pulling Facebook Saved videos
• Downloading reels/videos locally
• Generating M3U playlists
• Serving content over NGINX

📖 Full write-up on my blog: makes.swakes.co.uk

Features

• Headless Playwright scraping
• yt-dlp based downloads
• HTTP-friendly playlists
• Docker-first deployment

Requirements

• Docker + Docker Compose
• Facebook cookies (Netscape format)
• NGINX (host-level)

Quick start

cp secrets/cookies.example.txt secrets/cookies.txt
docker compose up -d --build

---

Docker setup

This option:

• runs your FBReelz scripts inside a container called fbreelz
• keeps cookies and data on the host under /opt/fbreelz/
• uses NGINX on the host to serve the web UI + cached MP4s + playlists

1) Install prerequisites (Ubuntu)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose-plugin nginx
sudo systemctl enable --now docker nginx

2) Copy this folder to the new host

Recommended destination:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/fbreelz
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/fbreelz
cp -r docker_setup/* /opt/fbreelz/

3) Put your cookies in place

Cookies are obtained using the cookies.txt Firefox extension.

mkdir -p /opt/fbreelz/secrets
nano /opt/fbreelz/secrets/cookies.txt
chmod 600 /opt/fbreelz/secrets/cookies.txt

4) Build + start container

cd /opt/fbreelz
docker compose up -d --build
docker exec -it fbreelz python /app/fbreelz_phase1_graphql.py --max 30
docker exec -it fbreelz python /app/fbreelz_phase2_resolve.py --download

5) Generate HTTP playlist for remote streaming (LAN)

This creates /opt/fbreelz/data/fbreelz_cache_http.m3u pointing at your server IP.

python3 /opt/fbreelz/make_cache_playlist.py \
  --base-url http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/cache/ \
  --out /opt/fbreelz/data/fbreelz_cache_http.m3u

6) NGINX

sudo cp /opt/fbreelz/nginx/fbreelz.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/fbreelz
sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/fbreelz /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/fbreelz
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Then open:

• http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/ (Web UI)
• http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/fbreelz_cache_http.m3u (playlist)

---

Web UI Setup (NGINX-served)

The FBReelz Web UI is a static frontend served directly by NGINX on the host. It does not run inside Docker and does not require Node.js at runtime.

Architecture overview

Browser
  ├─ /                → Static Web UI (HTML / JS / CSS)
  ├─ /cache/*.mp4     → Downloaded Facebook videos
  ├─ /fbreelz_*.m3u   → Playlists
  └─ /api/*           → (optional) backend

Docker is only responsible for scraping, downloading, and playlist generation.

---

Web UI directory structure

/var/www/fbreelz/
├── index.html
├── assets/
│   ├── app.js
│   ├── styles.css
│   └── icons/

Update the NGINX root directive if you change this path.

---

Copy the Web UI to the host

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/fbreelz
sudo cp -r web_ui/* /var/www/fbreelz/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/fbreelz

Permissions:

sudo find /var/www/fbreelz -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/fbreelz -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

---

How videos are exposed

Videos are downloaded to:

/opt/fbreelz/data/cache/*.mp4

NGINX exposes them as:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/cache/*.mp4

---

Playlists

Local:

/opt/fbreelz/data/fbreelz_cache.m3u

LAN / remote:

/opt/fbreelz/data/fbreelz_cache_http.m3u

Example entry:

#EXTINF:97,Ten Years of Dancehall
http://192.168.x.xxx/cache/facebook_2107482286680757.mp4

---

NGINX video notes

Recommended:

• sendfile on
• tcp_nopush on
• correct MIME types for .mp4 and .m3u

Avoid:

• aio on
• gzip on video files

---

Access points

• Web UI: http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/
• Playlist: http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/fbreelz_cache_http.m3u
• Videos: http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/cache/

---

Security notes

• Never expose cookies.txt
• Restrict /opt/fbreelz/secrets
• Use HTTPS if exposed beyond LAN

---

License

Private / internal use. Adjust as required.