How To Save A TikTok Draft To Camera Roll

If you’re creating a new TikTok post, the app makes it easy to pause the work and save a draft of the post to edit later on.

You simply have to tap the “Drafts” button that appears on the bottom left of your screen after you’ve recorded and previewed a video that you’ve created. To resume work on it, just click on the video’s thumbnail in your TikTok profile, hit the back button, and choose “Continue recording.”

But what if you want to download it to your phone’s camera roll instead?

No worries. It’s simple.

Why Would You Save an External Draft of Your TikTok Video?

There are several common reasons why you might want to save your TikTok draft to your camera roll instead of just saving it in the app.

• You might want to show or email the draft to other people for feedback before uploading it. TikTok doesn’t even allow you to share a draft video with other users, let alone forward it to another account.
• You might want to do more extensive editing with third-party software before finishing the TikTok creation process and uploading the post.
• You might want to post the draft version (without the TikTok bells and whistles) to another social media platform or website.
• You might want to back up the draft to make sure it doesn’t get lost when you log out or uninstall the app, experience an app crash, or accidentally delete it.

Saving a TikTok Draft to Your Camera Roll

Downloading a draft video to your device is simple, and there are two ways to do it. Choose option one if you want to post the draft and save a copy to your phone; use option two if you don’t want the draft to be visible publicly.

Option One

1. After you’ve recorded your video and done any initial edits required, click the down arrow on the right-hand menu and scroll down to “Save.”
2. You can either choose to save the draft with or without a TikTok watermark; most people don’t want the watermark on the draft version they save to their device. Make your selection and close the pop-up.
3. The draft video has been saved to your camera roll and posted to TikTok.

Option Two

1. After you’ve recorded your video and done any initial edits required, click on “Next” at the bottom of the screen.
2. Click “More options” in the middle of the next window, and make sure the “Save to device” switch is toggled to “on” in the pop-up menu. Close the pop-up.
3. To make sure TikTok users can’t see the draft, click the “Everyone can view this post” option, and select “Only you” in the new pop-up menu that appears. Make sure you don’t hit the “Set as default audience” button at the bottom of the pop-up, or all of your videos will be posted privately instead of publicly. 
4. Close the second pop-up and hit “Post.” Your video is saved both on your camera roll and as a private TikTok post that can be viewed or deleted at any time from the “private” icon in your profile (identified by the “locked” icon).

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t let you save your draft to the camera roll without posting it either publicly or privately; using the second option ensures that no one will see your video before it’s done.