I Accidentally Deleted A TikTok Message. Can I Get It Back?

Life is busy, forcing most of us to multitask constantly. That can lead to disastrous mistakes, particularly when we’re juggling our presences on social media platforms.

One of the most common mistakes people make? Accidentally deleting emails and other messages. On most email clients, that’s not a big problem; you can just go into your “recently deleted” file and restore the message you lost.

On platforms like TikTok, though, you don’t have that safety net. Once you delete a DM that you meant to save, it’s gone. There’s no “deleted” folder to check. You’re out of luck — unless you know the secret methods for retrieving messages on the app.

One warning, though: not all of them are as simple as you’d like them to be.

How To See Deleted Messages on TikTok

The first two solutions are the easy ones, and there’s no guarantee they’ll work.

1. Check Your Notifications

If you have TikTok notifications enabled, you get a notice whenever you receive a DM, and it may contain enough of a message preview to give you the information you’re looking for.

Click on the “Inbox” icon at the bottom of your home screen, and scroll through the system notifications you’ve received to search for the notice you received about the deleted message. Assuming you can find it, and assuming it contains enough of the message to tell you what you need to know, you’re in luck. Screenshot it and you can breathe easy.

If that didn’t help, read on.

2. Ask the Person Who Sent the Message

Here’s another possibility: see if the person you were DMing with still has the message and is willing to forward it to you.

Yes, that could be embarrassing, particularly if it involved something important. Make the best excuse you can (“The dog hit my delete button” probably won’t work), and you might retrieve the message and be forgiven.

3. Download Your TikTok Data

This one’s a pain, but it’s probably your best bet.

1. Open your TikTok profile by clicking the “Profile” icon on your home screen.
2. Tap the “Menu” icon (three horizontal lines) at the top right of the profile page, and choose “Settings and privacy” from the popup menu.
3. Scroll down to “Download your data,” click the link, and tap “Select data to download” from the “Request data” tab.
4. Select “Custom” from the popup, and then choose “Messages” on the next window. Click “Done” and then “Request data.” (If you want to save all of your data, use the default option instead of “Custom.”)
5. Move to the “Download data” tab, and tap “Download” when the link is available.
6. A zip file of all of your messages will now be in your device’s file manager, labeled “TikTok Direct Messages.” Open it, and you’ll be able to find the deleted message.

There’s one final method you can try if necessary, but it’s not recommended. Some websites promise that their iPhone or Android recovery tools can bring deleted TikTok messages from the dead. However, many of the sites aren’t reputable, and their tools may not work or may even contain malware.

Your best bet is to go through the process of requesting your TikTok data and then rummage through all of the messages you’ve received to find the one you need.

Good luck!