How to Download Your TikTok Data (Full Backup Guide)

Downloading your TikTok data is how you get a copy of your account out of TikTok and onto a drive you control. It matters most at exactly the moments when it is hardest to do: before you delete an account, before you hand a profile to someone else, or when access to the app itself is uncertain.

This guide covers the whole job - requesting the archive in the app and on the web, choosing a file format, downloading the zip before it expires, and then the part that catches most people out: checking what the archive actually contains and saving the files it does not include.

Export TikTok data at a glance

If all you need is the export loop itself - request it, watch it build, collect the zip before it expires - here it is in one block. Every row is expanded further down the page.

What "downloading your TikTok data" means

TikTok has a built-in export feature. According to TikTok, "you can request a copy of your TikTok data, which may include but is not limited to your username, watch video history, comment history, and privacy settings."

Two things follow from that sentence and they shape everything below:

• It is a request, not an instant download. TikTok builds the file after you ask for it.
• The contents are described as "may include but is not limited to" - so treat the archive as a record of your account, not as a complete copy of your media.

This feature keeps working in situations where the app itself is degraded. When TikTok went dark in the US in January 2025, CBS News reported that "TikTok voluntarily shut down service ahead of the controversial ban which took effect on Sunday. However, the social media app gave users the option to download their data despite losing service."

What is inside the TikTok data archive

The archive is organised around your account rather than your content library.

Those three groupings come from MakeUseOf. A separate account of the same export, from USA Today, lists it slightly differently: "TikTok users can download the data associated with their accounts, including their usernames, followers, accounts they follow, links to their favorite videos, messages and activity."

Read that phrasing carefully - links to their favorite videos. That single preposition is the most important detail in this whole guide, and it gets its own section below.

Choose your file format: TXT or JSON

When you submit the request, TikTok asks you to select a file format. On format choice, MakeUseOf puts it simply: "Pick the format you want to download the file in; TXT for an easy-to-read text file or JSON for a file you can import elsewhere."

Pick on the basis of what you plan to do next:

• TXT - you want to read your history, skim messages, or keep a human-legible record.
• JSON - you want to load the data into a spreadsheet, a script, or another service.

If you genuinely cannot decide, request one format, and once that file arrives request the other. TikTok documents two occasions for making another request: after cancelling one, "you can request your data again at any time," and for fresher contents, "you can make another request after this time period for more recent data."

How to request your TikTok data in the app

These are the steps as TikTok documents them. According to TikTok:

1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
2. Tap the Menu (☰) button at the top, then tap Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Account.
4. Tap Download your data.
5. Choose which information you want to include in your file to download and select a file format.
6. Tap Request data.

A third-party walkthrough updated by Tenorshare in July 2026 describes the same route and the same choice point: "Select 'Account' and choose 'Download Your Data.' Choose the preferred format (TXT or JSON) for your data. Submit the request and wait for TikTok to process it (typically takes a few days)."

How to request your data on desktop or in a browser

You do not need the phone app. TikTok exposes the same feature from web account settings at tiktok.com/setting/download-your-data - the download options sit behind login, so sign in first.

The browser route, as described by CBS News:

1. Log in, then hover over your profile photo in the top right corner.
2. Click Settings.
3. In Manage Account, under the heading Data, click Download your data.
4. On the Download TikTok Data page, choose what you want to request - "for example, all data or just your own profile and posts" - and choose the file format.
5. Click Request Data. "It might ask you to verify your account."

If your web settings look different

There is more than one documented way through TikTok's web settings, so if the menu on your screen does not match the steps above, try the other route. USA Today documents it as: visit TikTok.com, click "More" at the bottom left-hand side of the screen, click Settings, click Privacy, click Download your data, choose what to include and the format (.TXT or JSON), then click Request data.

Both routes finish in the same place - the Download TikTok Data page, which on the web sits under the Manage account tab alongside Privacy, Push notifications, Screen time and Content preferences. If you are already signed in, going straight to that URL skips the menus entirely.

How long it takes, and how long the file lasts

Two separate clocks, and people confuse them constantly.

Clock one - building the file. TikTok says "please note that it may take a few days to prepare the file." Size is the variable: USA Today reports that "depending on how much data an account includes, TikTok will send a file to download in minutes or a few days."

Clock two - the expiry window. Once the file is ready, TikTok states that "your file will be available for up to 4 days."

That second clock is the one that burns people. A request submitted the day before a holiday, a phone left in a drawer, and the window closes. If it does lapse, nothing is lost permanently - you request again and wait again - but if you were exporting ahead of a deletion deadline, "wait again" may be time you do not have.

How to download the finished file

TikTok notifies you in the app when the archive is ready. To collect it in the app, per TikTok's own steps:

1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
2. Tap the Menu (☰) button at the top, then tap Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Account.
4. Tap Download your data.
5. Tap Download data to see the status of your request, and tap Download if it's ready.

On a computer, CBS News describes the same final step: "When your data is ready, go back to the Download TikTok Data page and under the Download Data tab, click Download. The file will download as a zip file."

Move that zip somewhere durable the same day - a computer, an external drive, or cloud storage. A file sitting in a phone's Downloads folder is one lost handset away from gone.

Export status: what to check while you wait

What TikTok documents is a notification in the app and a status tab on the request screen - one screen to check, one notification to wait for.

• The notification. TikTok builds the file after you submit, and in its own words: "After you submit your request, we'll create a file of your data that you can download from the download data tab. We'll notify you in the app when it's ready to download."
• The status tab. On the same Download your data screen, TikTok's step is to "tap Download data to see the status of your request, and tap Download if it's ready." That tab is the status: pending until the file exists, downloadable once it does.
• On the web, the equivalent is the Download Data tab on the Download TikTok Data page, where CBS News notes the finished archive "will download as a zip file."
• What counts as normal. Anywhere from "minutes or a few days" depending on account size, per USA Today - a large, long-running account sits at the slow end of that range.
• If the request looks stuck, you can cancel it and submit a fresh one. TikTok's own note is that cancelling means "your TikTok data download will stop and you won't receive your file. You can request your data again at any time." The exact steps are in the cancel section below.

One thing the status screen will not tell you is how recent the contents are. TikTok warns that "due to processing times, the last 24 to 48 hours of some data categories may not be included in your file. You can make another request after this time period for more recent data." If you are exporting on the day of a deletion or a handover, the final day or two of activity is exactly the part most likely to be absent.

The limitation to plan for: your videos arrive as links

Here is the detail that turns a successful export into a disappointing one. CBS News states it flatly: "Your saved videos will download as TikTok links, not downloadable videos."

USA Today's description of the archive matches: what you get is "links to their favorite videos," not the files themselves.

The practical consequence: a URL only works while the thing at the other end still exists and you can still reach it. If the account is deleted, if a video is taken down, or if access to the platform changes, a list of links is a list of dead ends. Your data archive is an excellent record of what you had. It is not a copy of it.

So treat the export as step one of two:

1. Request the archive - your history, settings, followers, messages, activity.
2. Separately save the media files themselves, covered next.

Save your actual videos and drafts before you delete anything

Individual videos. TechCrunch describes the in-app route: "To download a video on an iOS or Android device, go to your TikTok profile page, select the video you want, and tap the Share button on the right side of the screen. Then, choose 'Save video.' You can download photos in the same way."

There is a limit on this. TechCrunch notes: "be aware that creators can control whether others can download their content. This means that some videos from your Likes, Reposts, or Bookmark tabs may not have a download option available." So your own posts are usually savable; other people's work that you liked or bookmarked may simply refuse.

Drafts. To get a draft video file onto your own device, Kapwing documents the route: "Go to your profile and open the drafts folder. Select the draft you want to save, then expand the menu on the right. TikTok allows you to either save the video with a watermark or post and save it without a watermark."

Take the watermarked save. It is the option that leaves your public profile untouched - the file lands on your device and the draft stays a draft.

The second option is not a private save, whatever the shortcut is called. Kapwing's own description of it is "post and save it without a watermark": you choose the "Post to save without watermark" option, and then, in Kapwing's words, "once the video is saved to your device without a watermark, simply delete the newly created post." Posting is publishing - the video goes onto your profile first, and it only comes off when you delete that new post afterwards.

What TikTok will not give you

Some things are outside the export by design.

• Data that affects the privacy of others. TikTok notes: "Some data may not be available to download, such as data that affects the privacy of others."
• Deleted content. On this point Tenorshare answers: "No, downloading your TikTok data does not include deleted messages. Once a message or other content is deleted, it is typically removed from TikTok's servers and cannot be recovered through the data download feature." Plan on the assumption that whatever you delete today will not be recoverable from an export you request tomorrow.

Common TikTok export failures and how to fix them

Failed and disappointing exports fall into a short list of shapes. Each one below has either a documented fix or a documented reason it cannot be fixed.

The links in the archive don't open in the app

If you have the zip open and cannot work out how to watch anything, this is the sequence. CBS News sets it out as: click the zip file that downloaded to your device, click the folder titled "Tiktok", click posts, open the text file, copy the link - "It will not bring you to the app" - paste it into your web browser, and watch your video.

That last detail is worth sitting with. The archive is a list of addresses, and every one of them is resolved by TikTok's servers at the moment you click it. It is a working index for as long as the platform and the posts behind it are still there, which is precisely the assumption most people are exporting their data to stop relying on.

Verify your archive before you delete the account

An unopened zip is not a backup. Before you delete, transfer or walk away from an account, open the file and confirm each category is actually there.

• Unzip the file on a computer and confirm it opens without errors.
• Check profile info - username, profile photo, bio, email address, phone number.
• Check activity - videos, comment history, chat history, likes.
• Check app settings - privacy, notification and language settings.
• Check the account-level lists - your followers and the accounts you follow, your messages and your activity.
• Confirm your understanding of the video entries: expect links, not playable files.
• If a category you expected is missing or thin, submit a fresh request rather than assuming it will appear later.

Only once that check passes should anything irreversible happen to the account.

If you are in the EEA or the UK: transfer instead of export

There is a second, separate route in some regions. TikTok explains: "If you're located in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom (UK), you may be able to authorize a third party to transfer your TikTok data (such as your posts, profile and activity information, and direct messages) to their service on your behalf. You can allow a third party one-time access or ongoing access to your data."

Note the distinction between one-time and ongoing access - ongoing means the receiving service keeps pulling, rather than taking a single snapshot.

The flow starts outside TikTok rather than in your settings: you open the third-party app, select the categories of data you want to send and tap Continue, then return to the third-party app to confirm. Because it is authorised rather than downloaded, there is no zip file, no format choice and no 4-day window to beat - but there is a service holding standing access to your account data, so grant ongoing access only where you would be comfortable with that arrangement continuing indefinitely.

How to cancel or re-request a data request

Requested the wrong thing, or the wrong format? Cancel and start over. TikTok's steps:

1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
2. Tap the Menu (☰) button at the top, then tap Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Account.
4. Tap Download your data.
5. Tap Download data, then tap Cancel next to your request.
6. Tap Delete request to confirm.

The save-first checklist before deletion or transfer

Work top to bottom. Everything here traces to a step covered above.