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There still might be some deus ex machina that saves TikTok—or at least puts things on hold—but for now the imminent ban on the social media app has been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
So what about all those videos you’ve posted ? They might be vacation vlogs, scathing reaction videos, or just lighthearted memes, but you likely worked hard on them, and it would be a shame to lose them.
Just to be clear, under the terms of the ban, existing users will still be able to use TikTok; you just won’t get software updates. So if you want to download those videos for safekeeping, you’re not necessarily under the gun to get it done by Sunday. Then again, TikTok’s lawyer told the court it would “go dark” on Sunday if the ban were not overturned … No one knows what that means.
You should be able to download any video you’ve published to the platform. You can also download other creators’ videos if they’ve made the videos public and enabled the privacy setting that lets other users download their clips. If you follow our steps below and don’t see the option to save locally, it’s likely the creator has restricted the sharing permissions.
If you’re a creator who wants to back up your own clips, or you just want to hoard your all-time TikTok faves, here’s how.
January 2025: This article was updated to reflect current information and details about downloading TikTok videos.
Save TikTok Videos to Your Phone
For most people, TikTok is a purely mobile experience: They watch, create, and post videos entirely with their phones. If you’re a mobile-first TikTok creator, then the videos you’ve shot may already be saved somewhere on your phone. But maybe you’ve switched phones, or you’ve deleted local copies of those old videos to free up space. If your videos are only stored in TikTok’s cloud, you can still likely download all of them onto your phone.
It’s a bit easier to download videos onto a computer than it is to get them onto your phone. There are a few extra steps on mobile, so if you have dozens or even hundreds of videos to back up, maybe follow the instructions listed further down that explain how to get the videos onto your computer instead.
Here are the instructions for iPhones and Android devices:
Go to any TikTok video. On your own videos, tap the three dots in the lower-right corner of the screen. For videos by other creators that are available to download, tap the arrow-shaped Share button in the same area.
A series of gray icons will appear along the bottom of the screen. Tap the one that says Save Video.
A percentage counter will appear onscreen, indicating that the app is processing the video. This usually goes very quickly, so you might not even see it, but that depends on the speed of your connection.
Next, an array of sharing options pop up. Scroll to the right and click the three dots. Here, you can choose the email option to send the file to yourself as an attachment, or upload it to a cloud service like Google Drive. There will be even more options based on your smartphone’s apps. Look for any options that allow you to save the video locally.
On Android, the best option for saving a video to your phone will be labeled Files by Google. Tap this icon to download the video to your phone, then use Android’s built-in Files app to browse your downloads. On iOS, look for the option Save to Files, then choose to save the video either in your device’s internal storage or in your iCloud drive.
Download TikTok Videos to Your Computer
The simplest option for collecting your work is to download the videos from TikTok’s website or desktop app. This process is very easy compared to the mobile option.
Go to your favorite video on TikTok.com and right-click on it. If you’re looking at your own video and you’re logged in to your account, or if the video’s creator has marked their posts as downloadable, there will be an option in the right-click menu that says Download Video.
Click that option.
Congrats, you’ve done it! The video will be saved as an MP4 in your downloads folder.
If you don’t see the option to download the video when you right-click, that probably means the creator hasn’t shared the video publicly or has chosen to disallow downloads.
Use Screen Record
It’s not the tidiest option, but you can also record a copy of the video via screen record on your phone. Screen record basically takes a video screenshot; once turned on, it will record whatever is playing on your screen until you hit Stop. Play the TikTok clip while screen recording and you’ll have a quick-and-dirty copy saved to your device.
You’ll need to play the video all the way through in real time. Keep in mind that this will capture everything that happens on the screen while you’re recording, so if a notification pops up or you swipe to another app, that will all be in the video. It also means you’ll still see all the menu buttons and text that are normally around the edges of the screen in a TikTok video, so it won’t be a perfectly clean copy, nor the best quality, but it may be better than nothing.
You can record your screen on iOS and on Android phones with Android 11 or higher.
To do this on iOS 18, first swipe down from the top right of your screen to access the Control Center. If you already see a gray circle with a white dot icon there, this is what you need to tap to start recording. If you don't, click and hold a blank space to edit your controls. Click Add a Control, and find it manually or search for it.
On older versions of iOS, you will have to do this slightly different, by heading to Settings > Control Center and pressing the + icon next to Screen Recording.
For Android users, swipe down from the top of your screen to bring up your notifications and settings screen. From there, you might have to expand the menu at top and swipe through your settings widgets. Look for Screen Record. Tap that and you’ll have options to record device audio as well as whether to show touches on the screen. Tap Start to record.
What’s With the Watermark?
If you’ve downloaded your videos, you probably noticed the faint TikTok watermark in the frame. This watermark will appear in any videos you’ve published as well as in videos you download from other creators. Unfortunately, there’s no official way to download a video directly from the platform after it’s been posted without that watermark being applied. If a video is still in your drafts in the TikTok app—meaning you’ve shot and edited it but not posted it yet—you can select the Save Video option and download a version of it without the watermark.
In general, if you’re creating videos, your best bet is to use a separate video editing app to edit your video before posting it online. That way you’ll always have the original cut and not have to worry about whether your distribution platform—and all your hard work—is about to suddenly go poof.
