How to download your TikTok videos

There may still be some distraction that saves TikTok — or at least stops things — but for now the US Supreme Court has upheld an impending ban on the social media app.

So what about all those videos you posted? They might be vacation vlogs, snarky reaction videos, or just fun memes, but you probably 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 will not get software updates. So, if you want to download these videos for safekeeping, you’re not necessarily under pressure to do so by Sunday. Then again, TikTok’s lawyer told the court it would “disappear” on Sunday if the ban isn’t overturned… and no one knows what that means.

You should be able to download any video you have posted on the platform. You can also download videos from other creators if they make their videos public and enable the privacy setting that allows other users to download their clips. If you follow our steps below and… no Check the save locally option, as the creator may have restricted sharing permissions.

If you’re a creator who wants to back up your own clips, or you just want to store your favorite TikTok clips, here’s how.

January 2025: This article has been 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 using their phones. If you’re a mobile-first TikTok creator, the videos you’ve shot are probably already saved somewhere on your phone. But maybe you’ve switched phones, or deleted local copies of those old videos to make space. If your videos are only stored in the TikTok cloud, you can still probably download them all to your phone.

Downloading videos to your computer is a little easier than transferring them to your phone. There are some extra steps on mobile, so if you have dozens or even hundreds of videos you want to back up, maybe follow the instructions below that explain how to put the videos on your computer instead.

Here are the instructions for iPhone and Android devices:

Go to any TikTok video. In your videos, click the three dots in the lower right corner of the screen. For videos made by other creators that are available for download, tap the arrow-shaped share button in the same area.

A series of gray icons will appear at the bottom of the screen. Click on who says Save the video.

A percentage counter will appear on the screen, indicating that the application is processing the video. It usually happens very quickly, so you may not even see it, but it depends on the speed of your connection.

Next, a set of sharing options appear. Scroll to the right and click on 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 more options based on your smartphone apps. Look for any options that allow you to save the video locally.