Honestly, I cried a lot this week thinking about losing TikTok. However, there are more real life the people I work with on Meta’s platforms because of the legacy of those social networks; I’ve had Facebook since college, and Instagram because it was iOS only—I switched from Android to an iPhone 4S one summer because I wanted access to that app. WhatsApp allows me to stay in touch with anyone in another part of the world. But TikTok is the community I join when I have time to lock myself into the algorithm.
TikTok is how I stayed connected to international communities when I couldn’t be there in person, on continents I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to visit. Generation Z adopted me there when I became hyper-fixated on that Joost Klein. That’s when I started to piece together why people thought I had ADHD for so long, and everything I learned on TikTok informed me enough to go to my doctor and say, “I think this is going on, after all.” During this latest fire disasterhappening in the southern half of my home state, TikTok allows me to keep an eye on which communities are affected and where I can donate money and supplies to help the victims.
Reader, I am sad. I haven’t fully accepted that TikTok is going the way of the Dodo — in the US, as it was in Russia a few years ago — and I keep logging in and hoping for a miracle. But I also face the reality that I have no idea what will happen January 19. So, like every time a company announces that their website or social network is down, I’ll do my best to back up my data on TikTok. And now we will all do it together.
How to backup your data on TikTok
A few nights ago I went through my TikTok account settings to see if I could download my data. The only way to do this seems to be through the mobile app as I can’t reproduce this next set of instructions on the web app. In the TikTok app, go to your profile page and tap the view button Settings and privacy Menu. Tap there and then select Account. Scroll down to where it says you can Download your data.
You must request a printout of your data before it can be downloaded. This process takes a few hours, and TikTok will offer a TXT or JSON file of your data to download from the same window. The package is available for four days from the moment you request it.
You can choose between downloading your TikTok data in JSON or TXT format.
I downloaded my data in both formats. Tons of stuff gets exported, like the names of accounts I follow to help me find them elsewhere, comments I’ve left on other people’s pages, and direct messages. Embarrassingly, TikTok also contained data about my purchasing habits on TikTok and the number of vouchers I missed.
I don’t know what to do with the JSON file. Lifehacker suggests using a file with third-party applications to extract certain data and export it elsewhere. there is GitHub Assistant you can tinker with it and it will take a JSON file and output the videos of your choice. But it all flies over my head as I try to do the other five things I should be doing at the same time.
If you’re like me and would rather pay yourself to make sure all your personal TikTok videos are downloaded locally, you can use a service like TokBackup to do the deed. The transaction is a minimum of $5 per month to get up to 6000 of those videos, and that’s after a full scan of your account. TokBackup is still scanning my profile, so I can’t report on its effectiveness in saving videos yet. The popular consensus seems to be that the easiest way to back up the TikTok videos you’ve posted is to save them one by one. I hope this TokBackup works because I don’t have time this week!
Suppose you want to save all your favorite TikTok videos before the app is deleted, like Alderaan u Star Wars: A New Hope. This handy Chrome extension will do this for you in the background. I have about 650 videos to download but I only got to 145 before I closed the screen to pause them. After we’re done talking here, I’ll be back to save every video I’ve ever liked on the TikTok platform.
Where to next?
I guess people will RedNote find your community in the Chinese version of TikTok. I haven’t jumped ship yet, but that’s because I’m not too enamored with the idea of translating every conversation between English and Mandarin. Other people just settle for Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, although no one has jumped ship yet. The community is still hoping for a last-minute agenda change before leaving the platform.
The TikTok alternatives that have emerged recently are so early stage that it’s hard to say whether they will offer the same magic that TikTok did. Apps like Byte and lemon8 (Android, iOS), owned by Tiktok’s parent company, could be a place to try if Meta’s platforms are no longer your cup of tea. There is also Trilicealthough I’m reluctant to suggest going there because TikTok haters used to congregate there from 2020.