How to download TikTok videos

1. The three routes, and who each one is for

• Save one of your own videos. One tap in the app, watermark included, available whenever downloads is switched on for your account.
• Export your whole catalogue. A zip from TikTok's data export. This is the route that still works when downloads is off, and the only one that returns every upload at once.
• Save someone else's video. The same Save button — but it only appears when that creator allowed downloads. Nothing on your side of the screen changes it.

Everything else — a pasted link, a “no watermark” site, a browser extension — is one of the above with a step removed and a risk added. Section 6 sets out what that risk actually costs.

2. Route one: your own video, one clip at a time

1. Open the TikTok app and go to your profile.
2. Open the video you posted.
3. Tap Share — the arrow in the right-hand column.
4. Choose Save video. The file lands in your camera roll with the watermark intact.

If Save video is not in that sheet, the download setting is off for your account. Switch it on:

1. Profile → ☰ Menu → Settings and privacy
2. Privacy → Video downloads
3. Toggle it on

Two exceptions are worth knowing. A private account cannot enable the setting until it goes public. An account registered as under 16 has it off by default and cannot turn it on at all. Labels move between app versions, so if the item is not under Privacy, search the word “downloads” inside Settings.

The toggle does more than add a button. With it on, anyone can save your video, convert it into a Live Photo or GIF, and post it straight to another platform. That is the trade: reach in exchange for a file you no longer control.

3. The same steps on iOS, Android and the web

• iOS. Share sheet → Save video → Photos → Recents. If the item is missing, scroll the app row sideways before concluding the button is gone; the list is long and TikTok reorders it between versions.
• Android. Share → Save video → Gallery, or the Movies/TikTok folder depending on the manufacturer. The first save on some builds also asks for storage permission — decline it and nothing lands, with no error shown.
• Desktop web. Open the video and use the download icon in the player's right-hand rail. When downloads are off the icon is absent rather than disabled, which is why people assume it is a bug.

The browser's own “Save video as…” does not work on the embedded player: the page streams segments rather than exposing a single file, so what you save is either nothing or a fragment. Use the in-app route instead of the browser menu.

4. Route two: your whole catalogue at once

This is the route that works with downloads switched off, and the only one that returns every upload in a single archive.

1. Profile → ☰ Menu → Settings and privacy
2. Account → Download your data
3. Pick a format: TXT if you want something you can read, JSON if you plan to script against it.
4. Tap Request data. Processing takes minutes to a few days, depending on how much is on the account.
5. Come back to Download data to check the status, then download. The link stays live for 4 days before it expires.

What arrives is a zip: a media folder with your uploaded videos and photos, plus metadata files covering captions, hashtags, comments you left, login history and ad interests. What does not arrive: other people's content, most direct messages (they concern third-party privacy), and the last 24 to 48 hours of some categories. If the archive looks incomplete, request it again a day later.

5. Route three: someone else's video needs permission

Tap Share and look for Save video. If it is there, the creator allowed downloads and the file saves with the watermark. If it is missing, downloads are off — and there is no legitimate switch on your side of the screen.

Three things still work when the button is gone:

• Ask. A direct message is the fastest route, and creators say yes more often than people expect — especially for a specific, named use.
• Repost. TikTok's own Repost button pushes the video to your followers without making a copy, so nobody's rights are stretched.
• Share the link, or embed it. Turning downloads off blocks the file, not the URL — links and DMs still work, and TikTok's embed code renders the player on your own site.

6. What a third-party downloader actually costs

Search the phrase in this page's title and the first page of results is mostly tools that paste a link and hand back a file. They work often enough to look harmless. Four things are being paid for, and none of them is the download.

• The watermark, in statutory damages. The watermark carries the creator's handle and the platform mark — exactly the kind of identifying information 17 U.S.C. §1202 treats as copyright management information. Strip it and you are in statutory-damages territory: $2,500 to $25,000 per work, with separate exposure under §1201 if a technical measure was bypassed, plus attorney's fees. No proof of lost sales is required.
• The platform terms, on your behalf. TikTok prohibits downloading except through the controls it provides, and prohibits removing the watermark. A third-party tool does both while you use it. In practice, sites built on that traffic lose domains to UDRP complaints, lose hosts, and fail ad review long before a court is involved.
• The link you just pasted. A page that promises a download and asks you to install an extension or log in is a well-worn malware and credential-phishing pattern. You are trading a 3 MB file for someone else's business model.
• The maintenance, which you inherit. These tools break every time TikTok changes its signing. The ones that survive are the ones spending the most on keeping up — which is why the page around the button is mostly ads, redirects and fake “Download” buttons.

This is a summary of how the statute and the platform terms work, not legal advice. If you are building a product around saved video, the terms of use explain what this site will and will not do.

7. Watermark and quality: what you actually get

Every official save keeps the watermark and re-encodes the file once. In practice that means: the resolution TikTok stored for that upload (commonly 720p or 1080p, depending on the device it was filmed on), a slightly larger file than the stream, and no loss of the original audio track.

• “4K download” claims. TikTok does not store 4K for typical mobile uploads. A site returning a 4K file is upscaling a smaller source, which adds pixels and file size, not detail.
• Genuinely smaller files. Some mirrors re-encode aggressively to save bandwidth — that is why the same clip can look noticeably worse from one site to the next. Compare file size against duration before blaming your phone.
• Photos, not videos. A photo carousel is a set of stills with a music track. Saving it through a video route gives you a video of stills, which is usually not what you wanted.

8. When the download fails

• No Save option at all. The creator turned downloads off. Nothing on your device changes that — see section 5.
• Save works, nothing appears. Storage permission was declined on Android, or the file went to a folder your gallery does not index. Check Movies/TikTok before saving again.
• It worked yesterday, not today. The creator toggled downloads off, or deleted and re-uploaded the video. A new upload is a new file with a new permit.
• It works on mobile data, not on Wi-Fi. Usually a region or network block on the CDN, not your account. Retry later rather than reinstalling the app.
• Your own old video is gone. Deletion removes the media; nothing in the interface restores it. The only copy is a data export requested before the deletion — so request the export first if you are about to delete an account.

9. Saving is not reposting

The permission that lets you keep a file is narrower than the permission that lets you publish one. Four common cases, from safest to riskiest:

• Keeping it on your phone to watch offline. Needs the creator's download setting, or your own upload. Nothing leaves your device.
• Quoting or commenting on it. Jurisdiction-dependent. A short excerpt with genuine commentary is the safest shape; a full reupload with commentary added is not.
• Posting it on another platform. Needs a licence from the creator or a legal exception. Credit is neither one.
• Using it in an ad, a client edit or a product page. Needs written permission, every time, for every placement.

10. If your own video was reuploaded without permission

Report it inside TikTok first — the in-app report reaches the reupload faster than anything else. For a copy hosted elsewhere, the host's takedown process is the lever, and it needs a specific notice rather than an angry message. The copyright and DMCA page lists what a valid notice contains; the same structure works for any host, not just this site.

Frequently asked questions

Related tools

If you came here from a video you were researching rather than saving, the TikTok viewer shows a video's public counters and plays it in TikTok's own player. The follower counter returns the exact audience size behind an account, and the engagement rate calculator and money calculator turn those numbers into something comparable. All of them read public data only — none of them touch the video file.