How To Edit On TikTok After Posting

You’ve spent a lot of time planning and shooting your TikTok video. You’ve painstakingly edited your work and you’ve added TikTok sounds, captions, filters, and effects. You’ve written a great description and chosen the right trending hashtags and mentions. Finally, you post your content.

And then you realize you made a mistake.

Maybe the problem is slightly different; a friend or follower pointed out a major error in something you said in the video, or you realize (thankfully, before the TikTok algorithms do) that you’ve posted something that violates Community Guidelines.

So, how can you edit a TikTok post after you’ve uploaded it?

Sadly, we have bad news for most readers. The video itself is “locked” once you’ve posted it, and can’t be edited.

The only elements of a post you’re allowed to edit are the description, hashtags, or anything else you added on the posting screen — and not every TikTok user has access to the editing feature yet.

If you’re one of the lucky ones, you can only make edits for seven days after you’ve uploaded the post and you’re limited to one edit per day. If you don’t have the “edit” feature on your TikTok version, you’re going to have to save, take down, edit, and repost the video.

Let’s unpack all of that.

Editing TikTok Descriptions

Those with the updated edit function should follow these steps to change their post’s description.

1. Visit your TikTok profile (the icon is at the bottom right of your home screen).
2. Find the post you want to edit in your content grid and tap on it to open it full-screen.
3. Click the three-dot icon at the bottom of the right-hand menu (not three dots in a circle, which is the “comments” icon).
4. A pop-up will open; find the “Edit post” option in the bottom row of icons.
5. You’ll now be able to change the description, hashtags, tags, mentions, and location.

Remember, not everyone has this feature yet, and as of this writing, no one can change the cover (thumbnail photo) on a post. Stay patient; more updates are coming.

Downloading, Editing, and Reposting on TikTok

If you need to change the actual video that you’ve posted, or you want to edit its description but don’t yet have edit functionality, things get more complicated. You’re going to have to replace the post you uploaded with a similar one.

TikTok veterans who’ve faced this problem before may be able to avoid some of the work that’s involved. Many have learned through experience to save videos to their device before posting them on the social media platform; they can just upload the raw video to TikTok’s editor, make any necessary changes, post the new version, and delete the old one.

Otherwise, here’s what you have to do.

1. Visit your TikTok profile screen, find the video that needs editing in your content grid, and click to open it.
2. Look for the three-dot icon at the bottom of the right-hand menu (not the comments icon, which is three dots in a circle), and tap it.
3. A pop-up opens; choose the “Save video” option and save to your device. It’s now on your phone’s camera reel. (You can also save to cloud storage, if you have that function enabled, so you can edit the video on another device.)
4. Delete the original version of the post (after making note of the description or other data you want to re-use).
5. Import the saved video to your TikTok editing screen (the icon to the right of the “Record” button lets you see your camera reel), and then make any necessary edits or changes to your description and cover photo.
6. Post the new version.

Two final points:

• When you replace the original post with the new one, all of the likes and other interactions you’ve built will be gone. You’ll have to start building engagement again.
• Even if you haven’t saved the content to your device before posting, you may still be able to save some work. If you have a draft version of the video saved in your profile, you can simply open it, do the “rest” of the necessary editing, and post it as a replacement.