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Honestly, I cried a lot this week thinking about losing TikTok. True, there are more real life people I interact with on Meta platforms due to the legacy of those social networks; I’ve had Facebook and Instagram since college 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 connect with anyone anywhere in the world. But TikTok is a community I go to when I have time to get locked into the algorithm.
TikTok is how I connect with international communities when I can’t be there in person, I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to visit. It’s where I get adopted by Gen Zers when I hyper-fixate on that Joost Klein. I started to piece together why people thought I had ADHD for so long, and everything I learned on TikTok gave me enough information to go to my doctor and say, “I think this is it after all.” This is the end time forest fire disasterhappening in the southern half of my state, TikTok allows me to track which communities are affected and where I can donate money and supplies to help the victims.
Reader, me sad. I haven’t fully accepted that TikTok has gone the way of the Dodo in the US, as it did in Russia a few years ago, and I keep logging in and hoping for a miracle. But I also face the reality that I don’t know what will happen January 19. So, whenever any company announces their website or social network, I will try hard to backup my data on TikTok. And we will all do it together now.
A few nights ago I checked my TikTok account settings to see if I could download my data. The only way to do this seems to be the mobile app, as I can’t replicate this next set of instructions in the web app. Go to your profile page in the TikTok app and tap the button to bring it up Settings and Privacy menu. Tap it, then select it Account. Scroll to where it says available Download your data.
Before you can download your data, you need to request a dump of it. 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 within four days of your request.
I downloaded my data in both formats. Many things are exported, such as the names of accounts I follow, comments I leave on other people’s pages, and direct messages. Unfortunately, TikTok also recorded information about my TikTok shopping habits and the number of vouchers I declined to use.
I don’t know what to do with the JSON file. Lifehacker suggests using the file with third-party programs to extract specific data and export it elsewhere. there is one GitHub Helper You will take the JSON file and export the videos as you choose. But when I’m trying to multitask the other five things I have to do, it all flies over my head.
If you’re like me and prefer to pay to have all your personal TikTok videos downloaded locally, you can use a service like this. TokBackup to do the deed. It’s a minimum transaction of $5 per month to get up to 6,000 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 is that the easiest way to back up the TikTok videos you’ve posted is to save them individually. I hope this TokBackup works because I don’t have time this week!
Let’s say you want to save all your favorite TikTok videos before uninstalling the app, for example in Alderaan Star Wars: A New Hope. This is a neat Chrome extension will do this for you in the background. I have about 650 videos to download but only got to 145 before I had to close the screen to stop them. After we’re done talking here, I’ll be back to save every video I love on the TikTok platform.
I guess people will go RedNote Finding your own community on the Chinese version of TikTok. I haven’t jumped ship yet, but that’s because I’m not too keen on the idea of translating every conversation between English and Mandarin. Other people are simply giving up on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, although no one has jumped ship yet. The community is still hoping for a last-minute agenda change before abandoning the platform.
The TikTok alternatives that have sprouted up recently are so new that it is hard to say whether they will deliver the same magic as TikTok. programs like byte and Lemon8 (Android, iOS), owned by the parent company of Tiktok, might be the place to try if Meta platforms are no longer your cup of tea. There is also one Trillsalthough I hesitate to suggest you go there because it’s where TikTok haters congregate. from 2020.