How to request and download your TikTok data

If you use TikTok, the app is gathering data about you whenever you use it.

What data does TikTik collect?

TikTok tracks which videos users engage with and how long they do so. The privacy policy also enables the app to track the contents of direct messages, as well as your country location, internet address, and device type. With consent, the platform can also collect users’ exact location and your phone contacts. It also seems to estimate your household income, and knows how expensive the smartphone or laptop you’re scrolling on is. None of this is necessarily more than what other social media apps collect about their users.

Should you request your TikTok data?

Downloading your TikTok data gives you a list of URLs of every video you’ve ever watched and a record of your messages, favorite hashtags, purchases you’ve made in the app and who you follow. That may be useful to have if the app is ever shut down, or if you really need to go find a video you saw and are willing to wade through a lot of links to find it.

There’s a lot of data that TikTok doesn’t hand over in a data request. For example, it doesn’t give you many clues about how the algorithm decides what content to show you, and what types of content it knows you engage with the most.

You still may be interested to see the information it is willing to provide you. TikTok allows you to access your data in either a TXT format or a JSON.

Read: I deleted TikTok as a college student. It saved my mental health.

How to request your TikTok data:

1. Click the Profile icon on the bottom right of your screen
   
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dionne Greene | TPIN

2. Click the icon with 3 horizontal bars in the top righthand corner
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

3. Select Settings and privacy from the bottom menu
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

4. Click Account – it’s the first option under the Settings and privacy menu
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

5. Select Download your data
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

6. Under the Request data tab, pick what you want to download. We recommend going with the defaults – downloading all of your data in a TXT format. However, if you want to download only certain parts of your data – like only your activity on the app – then you can click into “Select data to download”, click Custom, and pick what you want. You can also change the format type to Json if you want a machine readable version. But again, for most people selecting all data and TXT format is going to be the way to go.
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

7. Once you have your selections in place, click the red Request Data button at the bottom.
   
8. TikTok will then prepare your file. Time will vary based on how much data you have. If you’re newer to the app, the file will be available instantly. But if you’ve been around for awhile, it could take a few days. TikTok will send you a notification when your download is ready, but you can check in on it in the Download data tab. Processing means it’s not there yet.
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

9. When your file is ready, navigate to the same Download data tab using the above steps and click the red Download button. It’ll make you go through a quick verification process, and then you can download your file.
   

   Photo by Kalissa Dione Greene | TPIN

When the download file is ready, you’ll have 4 days to actually download it from the app before it expires. If you forget to download it, you can resubmit the request and TikTok will prepare another download file for you again.

If you download the file on your iPhone, you can find it using the Files app.

Other social media tips

How to request and download your Instagram data

How to stop Instagram from harvesting so much of your data