The 1 Thing You Should Do On TikTok Before A Potential Ban

Hold your funny TikToks tight now ― they might not be around for your viewing pleasure much longer.

That’s at least if you’re in the United States and the legislative ban on TikTok goes forward. Starting Jan. 19, the social media app might be illegal to distribute through app stores like Apple and Google Play as part of the terms set by a federal law President Joe Biden signed this spring. Under the law, TikTok will not be able to operate in the U.S. unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, sells the platform by the deadline.

In other words, on that day it will be illegal to find and view TikTok videos from U.S. internet browsers.

Although the deadline is approaching, it’s not set in stone whether a ban will actually take place. Lawmakers behind the TikTok ban said the app’s Chinese owner has national security risks that could allow the Chinese government to gain access to sensitive U.S. data ― an accusation TikTok denies. TikTok has challenged the law, and on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear arguments early next month over whether the law violates First Amendment speech rights, signaling it may issue a decision on the case before the divesting deadline in January.

But regardless of what the Supreme Court rules, there’s no harm in preparing now, especially if you have videos on the platform you want to keep.

I’m one of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok every day, and I’ve started downloading my favorite videos just in case. I use TikTok for dopamine hits of entertaining and informative videos of unlikely animal friendships and funny stories. I have built my “For You” page of videos brick by brick, losing hours of my life to TikTok. I need to be able to watch forever the hilarious video of a woman recounting how dousing her hair in olive oil led to a series of unfortunate events.

And if you’re a TikTok creator who depends on the app for your livelihood, the stakes are much higher. A ban can mean losing access to your entire archive, work you may have built over years.

The one important step you can take now is to maintain a digital archive of your work so you can keep access to your videos and potentially start to migrate them to other platforms. You may also be able to save a few favorited videos ― recipes, anyone? ― if the option is available to you. Here’s how:

In the TikTok app, go to the video you’d like to download, tap the “Share” button seen on the side and select “Save video.” If you do not see this option,
it means the creator has turned on a setting that doesn’t permit it.

If it’s one of your own videos, go to the “Post” screen, select “More options.” Toggle on the “Save to device” setting.

There are other ways you can download a TikTok beyond using the app itself. Keep in mind that even though you may be able to download, it doesn’t mean you always should. TikTok has run into legal troubles over copyrighted sounds.

Want to download a bunch of TikToks at once? On the service Repurpose.io, which has a 14-day free trial, TikTok creators have the option to automatically download their TikTok videos without watermarks and publish them to storage platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox.

You can also simply screen-record a video on iOS or Android. This option can be a little clunky, because you have to record in real-time and you might have an unwanted text or notification pop up on your screen, but it does the job. This can save your favorite TikTok for personal entertainment, but do not repost it without ensuring you have permission.

Ultimately, as a TikTok user, the fate of TikTok’s future in the U.S. is out of your control, but what remains in your control is how you maintain your personal digital archive. You don’t want to delay doing this. Take what happened with TikTok predecessor Vine, which was shuttered by Twitter (now X) in 2017.

Nowadays, you need to have a creator’s URL, the Wayback machine or savvy know-how to find old short-form videos you loved from the archived app. In other words, it’s a bit complicated.

But right now it’s not complicated to download a TikTok. So go do it before it could be too late.