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Is it possible to recover deleted TikTok videos?
Well, yes, sometimes. Depending upon the situation, users can restore deleted TikTok videos and drafts. Video recovery primarily depends on where the video was stored, how it was deleted, and whether you have a backup of it or not. Videos saved locally on your device can be recovered again, but drafts can’t be recovered again if the TikTok app is uninstalled.
Losing videos saved on TikTok or your drafts can be really frustrating, particularly if you didn’t save them anywhere else. TikTok videos can get deleted during a deep clean, when deleting app data, or when TikTok is uninstalled. Now, the recovery of these videos isn’t that hard, but it depends on a few factors.
Instead of frantically searching for how to recover deleted TikTok videos, check if you’ve a copy of the videos stored anywhere in your photo gallery. This guide covers the best ways to easily find deleted TikTok videos and restore them to your system.
Is it possible to recover deleted TikTok videos?
Before proceeding with any recovery method, understand that not every deleted TikTok video can be recovered. Recovery depends entirely on where the video was stored and whether you’ve a copy of it. Go through this table to know more about the different scenarios where data recovery is possible or not.
| Video type | Stored on device | Stored on TikTok | Is recovery possible? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published video | Sometimes (if save to device option was enabled) | Yes | Yes |
| Drafted video | Yes (only on the device where the draft is created) | No (not available on TikTok’s servers) | Sometimes (not possible if you delete the app data) |
| Downloaded video | Yes | No | Yes |
Why do TikTok videos get deleted?
TikTok videos can get deleted due to several reasons, ranging from accidental deletion to storage-related issues. Let’s get into some of the most common reasons below:
- Accidental deletion: This is one of the most common reasons TikTok videos get deleted. A video can get deleted from the gallery or any other folder when deleting videos and freeing up storage.
- Clearing up app data: Clearing up TikTok’s cache data also removes any drafts that were saved in the app and weren’t yet published. These draft videos are only saved on TikTok app on the device they are created.
- Factory resetting the device: A factory reset completely erases user data from the device, which includes any saved TikTok videos. Recovering these videos becomes very difficult if users don’t have a backup.
- Corrupted storage device: Corruption in the file system or SD cards where all the TikTok videos are stored can make them inaccessible and give rise to TikTok videos not playing error.
Methods to recover deleted TikTok videos
Losing TikTok videos can be a problematic situation for some users. Here are some methods listed below by which you can get back your precious videos:
Method 1. Restore videos using backup data
We all are aware of having a backup of user data. The same thing applies to our social media photos and videos. If you lost your videos or got deleted, you can easily restore them using the backup data. Users can easily backup using their phone by synchronizing videos to any cloud platform like Google Drive or the iOS Photos app.
Method 2. Recover using liked videos on TikTok
TikTok offers a feature of displaying videos that you have liked. You can recover deleted TikTok video if you have liked that video. Here’s the steps of how you can perform this:
- Start by opening your TikTok application.
- Now go to your TikTok profile, using the button at the bottom right corner of your application.
- In the TikTok profile, go to the Heart icon. Now open the option by clicking over it. Here now you can see all your liked videos.
- Here, click over the deleted videos from the liked videos.
- Now go to the three dots at the top right corner of the TikTok profile page.
- Here, click on the option Save video.
- Now, after this, users can see their deleted TikTok videos in the gallery.
- Finally, select the required images and click Save.
Method 3. Recover draft video
When the user records a video then, TikTok is used to offer the option to post it or save it as a draft. This feature saves the videos to your phone storage so that you can use them in the future. To recover draft videos, users just need to go to the phone gallery and then to the TikTok video gallery. To use this method, users always must click the save to album option; otherwise, you won’t be able to perform this method.
Method 4. Contact customer support
In case no other methods work for you, then you can directly recover deleted video by contacting TikTok itself. Here you need to go to the Settings and privacy and select Report a problem. After tapping the report, you can describe your problem; after that, it takes 24 hours for TikTok to fix your problem. They will provide you with a link through which you can recover your deleted videos.
Prevention tips to avoid losing TikTok videos in the future
It’s not easy to recover deleted TikTok videos, and at times, videos are permanently lost. Here are some tips you can implement to avoid losing TikTok videos:
- Keep Save to device setting enabled in TikTok: The Save to device setting in TikTok stores the video file locally before posting videos or before saving drafts to the app. This creates an additional copy that can help recover the video later.
- Take regular backups: Create multiple copies of your data and store them at a safe location like Google Photos to have a backup of important videos, even if you delete TikTok in the future.
- Be careful when deleting data: Make sure you only delete data that’s of no use to you. Don’t delete lots of data at once, and check the recently deleted folder after deleting data to check and restore any important video.
- Save drafts before uninstalling TikTok: Make sure to save unsaved videos locally on your device before uninstalling TikTok. Drafts will only be available for a limited period of time.
Conclusion
Recovering deleted TikTok videos isn’t impossible, but it’s influenced by many factors. Just check once if you have the deleted videos stored in either Gallery or the Recently Deleted folder of the system. But have you ever wondered, what if the recovered video fails to play or it displays a black screen, then what happens? You’d have to check for corruption in the recovered video file.
If you find the file to be corrupted, simply repair it with the help of a trusted video repair solution. Make sure to always keep a backup of all your TikTok videos so that you may never lose them again, either because of accidental deletion or due to video corruption.
People also ask
A. No, deleted TikTok draft videos can’t be recovered if you don’t have a copy of them saved either locally or on cloud.
A. TikTok draft videos can be found in the TikTok app’s profile page and are stored locally on the device.
A. It depends if you try to recover deleted videos within the 30-day recovery window. Users can recover their deleted videos from TikTok’s Recently Deleted section and similarly, from the Recently Deleted folder of their photo gallery.
