As fun as creating TikTok content can be, you might find that some of your videos just don’t end up the way you’d pictured. Editing and rewriting can only get you so far. Every now and then, part of the creative journey is about knowing when to scrap your video, learn from the process, and start afresh.

If you think you need to get rid of a video to make room for new creations, or you just want to trim the amount of content you have, it’s easy to get rid of TikTok videos on your profile.

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What is a TikTok video?

TikTok is one of the world’s most popular video platforms, allowing users to create and share short video clips with one another. The platform is geared towards snappy, fun, engaging content. It’s extremely popular with teens, people seeking how-to advice, music lovers, celebrity followers, or anyone looking for a bit of fun diversion during their day.

A TikTok video can be recorded and then edited all within the app itself, or you can work on editing it using your chosen piece of software before uploading to your TikTok profile. Initially, videos on the platform were only a few seconds long, as a way of distinguishing the app from YouTube. Nowadays, TikTok allows you to post longer videos up to 10 minutes.

How to delete a TikTok video

So you want to take down a video that you’ve already posted. Maybe it just hasn’t struck the right note. Maybe your followers aren’t huge fans of it. Maybe you think you could do it better with a completely fresh run. No problem, it’s very easy to delete TikTok videos.

If you’re in the process of recording or editing a video in the app itself, you can always close the draft without saving it, simply by pressing the X in the corner of the screen.

Please be warned: once you delete a TikTok video from your profile, you can’t recover it unless it has been previously saved to your device. It’s well worth keeping backups on your phone or on a computer if you want access to old drafts or deleted footage. The app itself won’t save anything you delete or discard from your profile.

For videos that have already been uploaded on your profile, here’s what you need to do to delete them, as of August of 2022.

  1. Tap on the Me icon.
  2. Choose the video you want to delete.
  3. Tap the three small dots to the bottom right of the screen.
  4. Hit delete.
  5. On the prompt asking whether or not you’re sure, click Confirm.
  6. Your video is no more!

How to recover a deleted TikTok video

It’s important to keep any TikTok videos you might want to re-post backed up on your device or laptop. This means saving the video itself to your own storage, rather than just having it on the app.

If using a mobile phone, press and hold the video whilst in the app, then tap the Save icon. This will save the video on your phone’s storage. It means that if you delete the video from your TikTok profile but want to put it back up later, you still can.

Otherwise, if you just had it saved on the app, deleting it from the app means that it’s lost forever. Unfortunately, the TikTok platform does not allow you to recover deleted videos. There are other ways to guard against this sort of permanent loss, though.

If you edit your videos in a piece of software like VideoStudio Pro, you can keep project files as well as various versions of your exported video safe. Keeping them on your computer and editing them on software like VideoStudio Pro not only ensures you can upload to your TikTok if you delete it from your profile. It also means you have a copy of your videos in the unfortunate event that your phone is lost or broken.

This also gives you the flexibility to edit and repost videos if you spot mistakes or if you want to make certain tweaks. Remember, just as deleting and starting from scratch can be part of the process, so can refining your content as you go along. This is why it’s a good idea to keep backup copies of your videos, so that you always have something to fall back on should you need to re-edit or re-post.

Delete the videos you don’t like, but be careful

Video creation is a continuous process. It can involve editing, re-editing, deleting, re-posting, and more. Not being happy with your final video isn’t the end of the world. You can easily delete to make space for something new. As long as you have your video file backed up, deleting isn’t irreversible either. Remember, the only time a TikTok video isn’t recoverable is if you delete it from the app and don’t have a version of it saved on your phone or computer.

Video editing software such as VideoStudio Pro can help you keep your old video files backed up and safe. What’s more, it provides you with a complete range of professional-grade editing tools at your fingertips, something that in-app editing simply can not match. Download a free trial today.

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