One Of TikTok’s Great Features: Videos In Slow Motion

About 34 million TikTok videos are uploaded every hour.

Many of them are fun to watch and easy to understand. Many other TikTok posts, like tutorials or sports videos, may require viewers to pay close attention and even replay them multiple times before fully appreciating the content.

Fortunately, the social media platform makes it simple to slow videos down while you’re viewing them. It also provides content creators with the ability to add slow motion to their productions, allowing viewers to see and appreciate action or details that might otherwise speed right by as they watch.

Let’s learn how these functions work.

How To Use Slow Motion While Viewing a TikTok Video

It’s surprisingly easy to slow things down while you’re enjoying a TikTok post.

1. Start watching the video you want to view in slow motion.
2. Tap and hold the screen as the video plays, and a popup window will appear.
3. On the popup’s top menu, scroll right to find the “Playback speed” icon.
4. You’ll see four options: “2x,” “1.5x,” “Normal” (the default selection), and “0.5x.” 2x and 1.5x play the video at double speed and 1½ speed, respectively; choose 0.5x to play the video at half-speed.
5. Close the popup and your video will play in slow motion. You can repeat the process to return to normal playback speed if desired. When you scroll to the next post in your feed, it will play as recorded and not in slow motion.

How To Use Slow Motion When Creating a TikTok Video

You have two options to add slo-mo to a video in the social media platform’s editor. You can either shoot your TikTok content in slow motion, or you can slow down all or part of it during the editing process.

Filming an Entire TikTok Video in Slow Motion

When you’re ready to begin recording, tap the “Speed” icon (it looks like a timer) in the Record screen’s right-hand menu. A popup lets you choose between “3x” (triple speed). “2x” (double speed), “1x” (normal speed), “0.5x” (half speed), and “0.3x” (one-third speed).

Choosing either 0.5x or 0.3x will slow down everything you shoot to your preferred speed (and importantly, extend the length of your video accordingly). Proceed with the rest of the editing and uploading process as you normally would.

Slowing Down a Portion of a Video

Record your TikTok video. When you’re finished, tap the red checkmark to move to the Editing screen.

Click on the “Edit” icon (a small monitor) on the right-hand menu. Choose “Edit” again on the bottom menu, find and select the section you want to slow down — for example, the part of a fix-it tutorial that shows detailed, close-up work, and tap “Split.”

Now, click on “Speed” (also in the bottom menu) and move the slider to select the speed you want the section to play at. You can choose from 0.1x (1/10th speed) to 0.9x (9/10th speed); this control also allows you to speed up portions of your video if you’d like.

Finish editing and uploading, and your video will include the slow-motion portions you’ve inserted. Your viewers will thank you!