Turning Multiple Videos Into A Single TikTok Video

Creating simple TikTok content is intuitive, once you’ve spent more than a few minutes on the social media platform.

You hit the “+” icon on the home screen, choose the maximum length of the video you’re creating, hit the white record button and tap the checkmark when you’re done, move on through the Editing screen to the Post screen, and click “Post.” Easy-peasy.

Simple TikTok posts are fine if you’re making occasional videos for family or friends. They’re not enough, however, for those who want to become more prolific content creators on the app. Learning how to use TikTok’s native editing functions allows them to produce higher-quality, more compelling vids.

The next step for those folks is figuring out how to do more complicated tasks — like taking a number of smaller videos and combining them into a longer, more interesting production. Let’s explore that subject.

Recording Multiple Clips for a Single Video

Let’s say you want to create a TikTok post that has three sections: an introduction, the “meat” of the video, and a conclusion. Here’s an example. Your child is about to ride a bike for the first time; you want to first record a description of what people are about to see, then shoot the actual bike riding, then interview the child after the successful ride.

The recording part is simple. Film the introduction and tap the “Record” button to pause the recording. When you’re ready to shoot the child’s ride, hit the button again to record the second part of the video, and tap to pause recording. Repeat the process one more time to record the interview, and then hit the red checkmark to move on to the Editing screen.

You could upload that three-part video at this point, although it might be somewhat choppy. To make the content look more professional, tap the “Effects” icon (two stars) in the right-hand editing menu, and scroll the video timeline underneath the preview window to the first “edit point.”

Choose “Transition” from the horizontal menu in the middle of the screen, and you’ll have a wide range of options for smooth transitions between the first two clips; tapping on each one will show you the transition in the preview window. When you’re satisfied, move to the second “edit point” and do the same thing to add a transition between that clip and the final one.

You now have a single video with a professional look.

You can perform many other editing techniques, including switching the order of your clips, by tapping the “Edit” icon (a horizontal screen) to reach the TikTok editor. You can also add effects, filters, sounds, or do anything else you’d like to create the “perfect” video for posting.

Many creators, however, have something else in mind when it comes to combining multiple videos.

Uploading Multiple Clips and Turning Them into One Video

This process works almost the same way we’ve described, once the videos are uploaded from your phone’s camera reel into the TikTok editor.

After hitting the “+” button to enter the “Create” screen, tap the “Upload” icon to the right of the “Record” button (the icon may be a thumbnail of one of the photos from your camera reel). A screen showing all of your pictures and videos will open; click the circle in the upper right of each video you want to upload, and then tap “Next.”

The editor will automatically combine all of the clips you’ve uploaded into one long TikTok video. You can preview it or edit it as discussed in the last section, and then post it on the app.

It’s amazing how the same app that lets you watch great content for hours lets you do so much to create your own great video. And there’s no need to settle for a simple piece of content when you can merge and edit multiple videos into an ever better one.