How to Stop TikTok Saving Videos to Phone

When you send TikTok videos to another person or share it to another app, like Instagram or Facebook, TikTok will save the video to your phone.

This can be a problem for some, it takes up storage making you have to do a weekly clean-up of your camera roll. While this issue is more common in Android users, people who have iPhones (iOS) have run into this problem as well.

If you are tired of having the videos you share to your friends getting downloaded to your camera roll, follow these steps below for help. 

Can You Stop TikTok Saving Videos to Phone?

Yes, you can stop TikTok videos from being saved to your phone. When you have to constantly be deleting videos in your gallery because TikTok downloads all the videos you share to other apps it can be tedious. Is there a way to stop TikTok from downloading every funny video you share with your sister on your phone?

The answer is yes, there is a way you can prevent this from happening. No more having to go into your camera roll and delete video after video. Keep reading and this guide will tell you how to stop TikTok from saving every video you share to another app.

How to Stop TikTok Saving Videos to Phone 

There are a handful of ways you can go about making sure TikTok does not save all the photos you share to other apps such as Facebook and Instagram.

This issue has been happening to users, when TikTok saves every video you share to your friends, this can take up your phone’s storage. You can disable the download feature on TikTok, you can try to disable your photo permissions in your phone’s settings.

You can also not share videos from TikTok if you just want to avoid the problem altogether. Whatever you decide to choose, you can follow these steps below to stop TikTok from saving videos to your camera roll.

1. Turn Off Downloads

When TikTok is downloading every video you share to another app or a cute pet video to your partner, onto your device it can create storage issues.

This problem is making users spend some time deleting all these TikTok videos off of their camera roll.

One way you can stop this from happening is by going into TikTok and turning off your downloads. Remember to always make sure that your app is updated to the recent version, this can help your TikTok app run more efficiently. 

Step 1. Open your TikTok app.

Step 2. When you are in the app on your homepage you will go into your profile. You can reach your profile by tapping the profile button at the bottom right corner. 

Step 3. Once in your profile tap the three horizontal lines that are on your top right corner. 

Step 4. When you click on the three horizontal lines in the top right corner there will be a Settings and Privacy option, tap that.

Step 5. In the Settings and Privacy, you will see “Privacy” tap on that.

Step 6. Once in the Privacy settings scroll down until you reach “Downloads”

Step 7. Tap on the “Downloads” 

Step 8. When you are in the Download option you will see a toggle next to “Video Downloads”, this will turn the downloads off or on.

Step 9. Tap the “Video Downloads” toggle off, to make sure the videos you share to another app will no longer be saved to your device.

2. Don’t Share Videos From TikTok 

There is another option you can take if you are tired of constantly deleting videos off of your camera roll. When you share a TikTok video to another app, and if your “Video Downloads” is active, TikTok will save the video to your device every time you share it.

You can disable the “Video Downloads” option or you can stop sharing videos from TikTok. Most of the time the TikTok creator will share the same video on another platform like Instagram or YouTube.

You can share the video from those other platforms instead of TikTok. This could be just the option you need instead of having to deal with a weekly purge on your device. 

3. Disable Photo Permissions in Phones Settings 

Sharing videos to your friends and family can be your form of love language, wanting to share something that makes you happy with others.

If you want to double-check to see that TikTok is not saving videos that you share to your phone, there is another route to take.

You can always disable the photo permissions in your device’s settings. Follow these steps to see what you can do to stop TikTok from downloading the videos you share on another app to your phone.

1. The first thing you will want to do is go into your phone’s settings.
2. When you are in your phone’s settings scroll down until you see the app settings, tap on that.
3. Once you have tapped on the app setting you will look for the app you want, in this case, it will be TikTok.
4. When you have selected TikTok you will want to tap on the “Permissions” option.
5. When you are in the “Permissions” you will see the “Camera” selection, tap on that.
6. In your camera options for TikTok in your phone’s settings there will be an option to deny permission. This means TikTok does not have permission to access your phone’s camera. When you tap on deny, videos will not be able to download onto your phone.

This is a great way if you do not want TikTok to have any access to your phone’s camera. On the other hand, this means you will not be able to post onto TikTok because the app can not access your camera roll.

If you are just someone who enjoys scrolling on TikTok watching the videos and not posting on the app this will not be a problem for you. If you are someone who loves to share content on TikTok then this may become an issue. You can go into your app’s settings and allow the camera’s permissions on TikTok and post your video.

After the video is posted you can go back into the app settings and deny the camera’s permissions once again, but having to do that every time you post a video can be a pain.

With the amount of content that is posted on TikTok on a daily basis, it is hard to not find a video worth sharing to your best buds.

Most people want to share TikTok videos on other apps such as Facebook or Instagram without having the video always saved on their smartphone. No one wants to go through their phone constantly deleting videos because their storage is full of TikTok videos.

As stated above there are ways you can prevent TikTok from always downloading videos. This is a problem users are having with both the iPhone (iOS) and Androids, these steps can be used for both devices. 

If you choose to turn off your downloads on TikTok settings or deny the app access to your camera, it will no longer save videos to your phone.

These actions will free up your phone’s storage for more important things. If you do not want to bother with going into the app’s settings there is always the option of not sharing the videos from TikTok.

Instead try seeing if that creator posted the same video on Instagram or YouTube and share it from there, avoiding TikTok from saving videos to your phone.