What Happens If You Turn Off Your TikTok Watch History?

Being able to bookmark a TikTok post is one of the most convenient features on the social media platform. When you see a great TikTok video that you know you’ll want to go back and watch again and again, or show to your friends who aren’t on the app, favoriting a post lets you find it quickly and easily in your TikTok profile.

But what if you forget to bookmark it, or you only get the joke a few days later, or the subject of the video comes up in discussion and you remember having seen the definitive TikTok content on the topic? If you haven’t made it a favorite, good luck finding it again on your feed.

Thankfully, there’s a hack that can let you find one of the vids you watched days, weeks, or months ago. It’s called the TikTok watch history.

How to Find Your Viewing History on the App

A list of your previously-watched videos is buried in your TikTok settings. Once you know where it’s located, you can look back at the posts you’ve viewed recently and pull any of them back up.

1. Open the app and go to your TikTok profile by tapping the “Profile” icon at the bottom right of your home screen.
2. Hit the “Menu” icon (three horizontal lines) at the top right of your profile screen.
3. A popup window will open; go to “Settings and Privacy.”
4. Select “Activity center,” and then tap on the “Watch history” link.
5. You’ll see a grid of the videos you’ve viewed. It can be filtered by dates and time periods for convenience.

TikTok’s algorithms are always collecting data on the posts you watch, and the results show up on your watch history. You used to be able to “turn off” your watch history from this screen, but that option has been deleted in the latest versions of the app.

However, you can clear your history (going back 180 days) and start fresh if you’d like. You’ll have to pull up your entire watch history, tap “Select all watch history,” and click delete, so it’s not a one-click process if you decide to clear everything out.

Is it a good idea to delete your watch history and start over? Read on.

Pros and Cons of Deleting Your Watch History

For most people, there’s no need to clear the videos out of this library. It functions in the background when you’re on the app and doesn’t have much of an impact on your day-to-day life on TikTok.

However, some people decide that deleting their past watch history makes sense. Here are the reasons why you might want to do it — and the reasons you might want to leave things alone.

Pros

• If you spend hours a day on TikTok, some people believe that you might have such a large watch history that it begins to slow down the app. Not all experts agree, but starting fresh might clear space and let the app run faster.
• If you share your phone, or your account is accessible to others, you may not want anyone else to be able to see which TikTok posts you’ve viewed.
• Some people deeply concerned about online privacy clear all of their social media histories regularly as a precaution.
• Perhaps most importantly, TikTok uses your watch history to customize your viewing experience and decide what videos you should see on your For You feed. If you feel that your feed has gotten stale or your interests have changed over time, clearing the history can help you see a wider range of content or a broader selection of material from newer content creators.

Cons

• If you want to go back and find a video that you watched some time ago but didn’t bookmark, it will no longer be easily accessible.
• Clearing your watch history isn’t the same as deleting it; the system will still have a record of your activity on TikTok and won’t give you a completely “fresh start” on the app. You may still see many videos similar to the ones you’ve watched in the past, in addition to new ones. If you’re taking this route, you should also “reset” your For You page by going to “Settings and Privacy” > “Content Preferences” and tapping the “Refresh your For You feed.”
• Any privacy concerns that you might have aren’t completely addressed since the algorithms still have a record of your viewing history.
• If you’ve decided you want to keep your watch history clear, you’ll have to back to delete all of the videos in the grid regularly.

Most TikTok users, even if they’re aware they can clear their viewing history, don’t bother; they find it more convenient to be able to find a memorable post from long ago. Now that you know your options, though, the choice is up to you.