How To Save TikTok Videos Without Posting [Illustrated Guide]

Published: August 8, 2022 | Last Updated: July 1, 2024

There are two ways to save your TikTok video without posting it first:

• As a draft.
• As a private video.

Here’s how you do both:

How to save a TikTok video as a draft and download it to your phone

1. When done, tap ‘Next’ to go to the Post page
2. Open TikTok and create a new video.
3. Tap ‘Drafts’ in the bottom left corner
4. Open the draft and tap save the video.

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

Tip: You can also make already created TikTok videos longer.

How to create and save a private TikTok video to your phone

1. Launch the TikTok app and record a new video.
2. When done, click ‘Next’ to get to the Post page.
3. Under ‘Who can watch this video,’ select ‘Only Me’ (see photo 1 below).
4. Now go to your profile and click the lock icon to view your private videos.
5. Click the video you’ve just posted privately.
6. Hit the three-dot menu button
7. Click ‘save video’ (see Photo 2 below.)

If, for some reason, TikTok won’t let you save your video, check out this troubleshooting guide.

This is helpful if you want to edit your video on another platform before uploading the downloaded TikTok video back to TikTok.

Up Next: How to upload videos to TikTok check out this guide.