TikTok constitutes one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Statistics show more than 1.2 billion TikTok users by the end of 2021. And that is the number of active users that can easily surpass 1.5 billion by the end of 2022. With such a public platform, there can be instances when you might need to archive a TikTok that you accidentally posted.
Well, TikTok understands the plight and offers a couple of measures to reduce the visibility of your videos.
The most convenient method to achieve your TikTok is to set its privacy option to “Only me.” This way, no one else but you can see the TikTok. You can also save the TikTok to your camera roll and then delete it from the TikTok app entirely.
In this short guide, you’ll learn about both the methods mentioned above. So, let’s take a break from recording to see how to archive a TikTok and relieve some privacy anxiety from your mind.
Privacy Settings on TikTok
If you have the appropriate privacy settings for your account, you may not need to archive any uploaded videos. You can make the following changes from the privacy section of the profile menu.
- Making your account private: Only the users you approve can view your TikTok videos if you make your account private.
- Blocking select users: When you block a user, they cannot view your TikTok videos or send direct messages to your account.
- Modifying Duet and Stitch settings: You can switch the settings to restrict who can use your TikTok videos for Duets and Stitches. It gives you additional privacy as people who can’t see your videos might still observe the Duets shared by others.
How To Archive a TikTok
Unfortunately, TikTok has no official function to archive your videos. Still, there are two primary methods that you can follow to limit their visibility.
Method #1: Deleting Your TikTok After Saving It on Your Device
This is a sure-shot way to archive a TikTok offline. This way, even if someone has access to your account, they can’t view your video. You can choose to reupload and edit the video as required, should you change your mind in the future.
To save a TikTok video on your phone and delete it, follow these steps:
- Launch the TikTok app on your smartphone.
- Log into your account and tap the “Profile” button on the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Browse through the page till you find the right video.
- Tap on it and go to the additional options by choosing the three-dot button at the bottom of the screen.
- From the pop-up menu, tap on the “Save video” option.
- Once the video is on your device, go back to the additional options for the same video, swipe left on the menu, and tap the “Delete” button.
- Upon confirmation, the video gets deleted from your TikTok account.
TikTok clarifies from their User’s Agreement that they don’t save any of the videos on their servers once you delete them.
TikTok has a strict privacy and copyright policy when it comes to others sharing your TikTok videos without your consent. If you come across any such content, you can report the incident, and the platform can manually take it down in case it violates the policy.
Method #2: Increasing the Privacy of Your Video
Another way to (kind of) archive your TikTok is to change its privacy settings. You can do so through the method mentioned below. It is faster and doesn’t take up any space on your phone.
- Launch the TikTok app and log into your account.
- Go to the “Profile” section from the menu located at the bottom of the screen.
- Browse through your uploaded TikToks till you find the one you wish to archive.
- Once you locate the video, tap on it and click on the three dots in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- From the pop-up menu, choose the “Privacy settings” option.
- Select “Who can watch this video” from the following page.
- Set it to “Only me.”
Your changes should come into effect immediately. Remember, you can always change the privacy settings in the future if you wish to make your TikTok public again.
Once you apply the privacy changes to anything other than “Public,” no one watching your TikToks can save the video on their device. Although, they can still comment and share it on other social media platforms through the URL.
Parting Words
TikTok makes it rather convenient to exercise your privacy by restricting access to your videos. Depending on your situation, you can delete the video entirely or make it privy to a limited audience.
It would be nice if TikTok provided a dedicated archive function to make the process much smoother. Although, with the way TikTok is using up server space to keep the public videos up, it seems like a far-fetched dream at best.
FAQs
No. Whenever you save someone else’s video, TikTok Analytics reports it as a share.
When you save your TikTok videos on an iPhone, they become part of the Camera Roll. You can locate the videos manually under the TikTok folder in your phone’s storage.
