Where Are My Drafts On TikTok?

TikTok users who shoot content in one take, often as a monologue talking directly to their phone camera, usually don’t have much work to do once they’ve finished recording. They may want to add a filter or an effect to their TikTok video, but then they’re ready to add a caption and hashtags, and upload their TikTok post.

It’s not always that easy for other content creators, though.

• Those who make more complicated content generally need more time to edit and fine-tune what they’ve shot — and they may have to put the project aside to go to work, have dinner, or go to bed.
• They may not be completely sure that they’re satisfied with their video, and want to come back to it with new ideas later in the day or later in the week.
• They may want to add an outside photo or video that they don’t have available during their initial editing process.

In those cases, and many others, it makes sense to save a “working version” version of the video so it’s available for further editing at another time. That’s easy to do. When you reach the “Post” screen (the one that appears after you click “Next” in the editor), tapping the “Drafts” button at the bottom left saves the project.

But when you’re ready to resume work, where do you find your drafts that haven’t been completed?

Locating Drafts on TikTok

Even though you want to resume editing, you don’t open the video creation screen to bring up an unfinished video. Instead, you find your drafts by going to your TikTok profile page.

1. Click the “Profile” icon at the bottom right of your home screen.
2. In the middle of the profile screen, you’ll see an icon for your content grid. Find the drafts section and tap on the draft you want to edit.
3. It will open in the editing screen, where you can resume work on the project.
4. When you’re done with the editing session, tap “Next.” You can either post the video or save the new version as a draft.

I Don’t See My Draft on My Profile Page!

Don’t panic — yet.

It’s important to understand that TikTok drafts aren’t saved to the social media platform’s servers; they’re saved to your device. If you don’t see a draft that you’ve saved, it’s probably because you were on a different phone or tablet when you created it. As long as you still have the device, you’ll find the draft when you open the TikTok app and can work on it there.

However, if you’ve exchanged your phone for a new one and no longer have the old one that you used to create the draft, you’re out of luck. And if you’ve done a factory reset on your phone, or uninstalled and then reinstalled TikTok, the draft is gone.

How do you prevent that rare but disastrous problem? By saving your unfinished draft to your camera roll. The process is a bit messy, though, since the only way to do this is to also post your unfinished draft on TikTok privately (where only you can see it). You can save it on your phone at the same time, letting you quickly import it into the TikTok editor and finish the work.

1. Instead of tapping “Drafts” when you reach the posting screen, find and click the link that says “Everyone can see this post.” On the pop-up window, tap “Only you” and close the window.
2. Now click the “More options” link. On that pop-up window, find the “Save to device” slider and make sure it’s set to “on” (all the way to the right).
3. Finally, close that window and tap “Post.”

Your half-finished video is now posted privately to TikTok (and can later be deleted), and it’s on your camera roll to be imported for further work whenever you’re ready.