How To Save TikTok Videos Without Posting [Illustrated Guide]


After you’ve spent hours (or at least an hour) creating a TikTok video with all the cuts and edits, special effects, and music cues that make up TikTok’s outstanding features, you may have asked yourself the following question:

Is it possible to save a TikTok video without posting it?

The short answer is yes, saving TikTok videos directly to your camera roll without posting them to the public is possible.

The following article will guide you through the easiest way to save your favorite videos, whether you save them to your phone’s gallery, TikTok drafts, or save it as a private video without third-party apps.

Check out 12 tips on how to make a video go viral on TikTok.

We break down the main solutions to save a TikTok video, including how to use a video downloader app or save it as a private video before you save it to your phone.

We’ll also walk you through the downloading process.

The next paragraphs are related to how to save TikTok videos. But if you read until the end of this post, we’ll share how you can watch TikTok videos from anywhere without needing a phone.

How to save a TikTok video in the gallery as a draft

The following method will show you the simple way to save a video after you’ve created it but before you share it to your profile without posting it publicly.

Tip: If you want to know how to upload videos to TikTok check out this guide.

To do so, use the following steps.

  1. The first step to saving your TikTok videos is to go to your phone’s app drawer and launch the TikTok app.
  2. Now create your new video. To do this, the + icon at the bottom of the screen to start to record a new Tik tok video.
  3. Hit the red circle button to record.
  4. Click ‘Next’ to get to the Post page.
  5. Under ‘Who can watch this video’ select ‘Only Me’ (see photo 1 below).
  6. Now that you know how to create a TikTok video, and set it to private, hit ‘Post’.
  7. Now go to your profile and click the lock icon to view your private videos.
  8. Click the video you’ve just posted privately.
  9. Hit the three-dots menu button
  10. Click ‘save video’ (see Photo 2 below.)
TikTok how to set video to private
Photo 1: set your TikTok video to ‘Only me’ if you want to post it as private.
(Image credit: TikTok)

Here’s how you can confirm. You should see the profile icon on the right-hand side to view your posted videos in the right corner.

To confirm you got the right result, just go to your TikTok feed. You should now see the video on your personal page, but not your feed, as it’s private. Click on it to get to the download option as seen in Photo 2 below.

TikTok how to save video camera roll
Photo 2: when you’ve clicked your private video, click ‘Save video’ to save your TikTok video to your smartphone’s camera roll.
(Image credit: TikTok)

You could even go on a second private account and type the name of your profile in the search box.

This is also helpful if you want to make the required edits to your video on another video platform before uploading the downloaded TikTok video back to TikTok.

You can also make your TikTok videos longer if you want, as you can see in this guide.

How To Save your TikTok video as a draft

The next option is to save the video as a TikTok draft video while simultaneously downloading it to your camera roll.

  1. Open TikTok
  2. Click the + icon to create a new video
  3. Click the red circle button to start recording
  4. Click ‘Next’ to go to the Post page
  5. Click ‘Drafts’ in the bottom left corner

You can now view your downloaded videos in your camera roll. This is the most direct way to save a video without posting it.

You can also watch all your drafts from your profile page under your posted videos:

TikTok how to view drafts
From your profile page, under your posted videos, there’s a folder containing all your drafts. (Image credit: TikTok)

They are in a folder called Drafts, and you can see the number of drafts you are currently working on.

How to remove TikTok watermark from saved videos

The TikTok application isn’t just home to entertaining videos. Many businesses now use TikTok as part of their marketing operation as it’s a great platform for content and trend discovery.

One of the most interesting features of TikTok is the wealth of video editing tools available and their easy usability.

So many cool videos can be made on the app and reused elsewhere for your business. This eliminates buying expensive video editing software if you just want to make short-form social content for marketing purposes.

Let’s say you want to save a video without the TikTok watermark to reuse on another platform. Third-party apps like Tikmate and Snaptik will do this for you. Just copy the link to your saved videos to remove the watermark logo on your videos.

The second solution is to download video with a third-party video downloader. The Avalon video downloader app for Android will download the video without any watermarks.

Now, you mustn’t use this trick to break intellectual property rights. Everyone may have their reasons for removing a watermark logo.

For example, if you like to edit videos for fun, it’s harmless to remix others’ content so long as you credit them.

But perhaps the logos don’t look good in your video. TikTok videos in your supercut will have the original creator’s TikTok logo and account username, but other videos sourced from other platforms won’t.

This will create an inconsistent look, so it makes sense to remove it to create a consistent feel.

You may have a different reason, which is all good. You want to avoid copyright infringement issues, so if you plan on using someone else’s video in your content, it’s better to leave the watermark on so the original creator is sourced accordingly.

But if you ever want to see TikTok’s community guidelines to ensure you follow them, you can go to the official TikTok website and view them there.

What if you want to take a live photo or screenshot of your video?

You can easily take a live photo or screenshot of your TikTok video clips from the social media app.

But if you want to save the video to your camera roll or cloud drive and use a desktop computer to take the screenshot, you totally can.

Just follow the download option above, open the video of your choice in your device gallery and drag the play bar to the moment you want to take the screenshot.

Use the following command if you are on a Mac or PC:

To take a screenshot on a mac, use: Shift + Command + 3

To take a screenshot on a PC, use: Shift + Windows Logo + S

This way, you don’t have to open TikTok on a web browser because the navigation can sometimes be difficult. You could always just go to the direct video with the video link, but this method works just as well.

How to watch TikTok videos anywhere without a phone

Did you know you can watch Tiktok videos anywhere without a phone? While many users use an Android emulator called Bluestacks to play Android phone games on any platform, users can also use this handy online platform to play TikTok videos from anywhere.

Just go to the Bluestacks home page and check it out. You can even look for Bluestacks in the app store if you want to use it on an iPhone to play Android games.

To get started, just visit the official website and download the official app or go to an app store to download it. For instance, you can download the latest version of the app from the Google play store.

Here’s a video that explains how to use Bluestacks to watch TikTok videos.

In closing

TikTok has quickly become the ultimate platform for short videos only two years later. If it wasn’t obvious enough, just look at the success of YouTube Shorts, which is YouTube’s answer to TikTok.

Even with YouTube Shorts’ success, it seems impossible to stop the growth of the social media platform now.

We hope you find this guide helpful. If you still have trouble saving your TikTok video, we have created this troubleshooting guide for you.

After all, you’ve just made the perfect video. One, you don’t want to lose your hard work, and two, maybe you want to save it to work more on later or post it at a more opportune time.

Or maybe you just want to get a second opinion before you post it.

If you have questions or alternate solutions to downloading a TikTok video without publishing it, leave them in the comment section below.


Author

  • Grant Harvey

    Grant Harvey is a freelance writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker based out of Los Angeles. When he’s not working on his own feature-length screenplays and television pilots, Grant uses his passion and experience in film and videography to help others learn the tools, strategies, and equipment needed to create high-quality videos as a filmmaker of any skill level.

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