If you’ve saved or downloaded someone’s TikTok video, you may be wondering – will they know? Does TikTok send a notification when you save someone’s video?
Likewise, if you are a video creator, you may be wondering if you can pull up a list of everyone who’s saved your video.
But is this actually possible on TikTok?
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know.
Does TikTok Tell You Who’s Saved Your Video?
At this time, TikTok does not let you know who has saved your video.
No notifications are sent out, which effectively means that if you save someone’s video, it’s completely anonymous. The creator will be able to see how many times their video is saved, but they will not be able to tell which TikTok users are the ones that have actually saved it.
This means you can download videos to your heart’s content, without having to worry about the creator ever finding out.
A word of warning however – when downloading videos, it is simple to accidentally double tap the video or click the like button. This can send out a notification to the video creator, which at the very least shows the TikToker that you’ve seen it. If you’ve happen to like videos that are old and are no longer on the For You page, this may indicate that you’ve been scrolling through their profile.
Additionally, as of late 2022, TikTok is now sending notifications out when you ‘favorite’ a video.
This may be something you want to avoid.
What if you’re the video owner though? If you’re a TikTok creator yourself, unfortunately you can’t see who is saving your videos by downloading or sharing them.
Thankfully though, the names of specific accounts really aren’t all that important – by comparing your total number of saves between videos, you can get a better idea on how each video is performing relative to others.
Does TikTok Notify For Screen Recordings?
If you’ve ever tried to save videos on TikTok, you may have noticed that you’re unable to do it on certain videos.
TikTok creators have an option available to them in their settings, that allow them to prevent viewers from downloading their TikToks.
Of course, even if they have downloads disabled, this doesn’t prevent anybody from using the screen recording feature built-in to their phones.
Therefore, it is a decent alternative if you want to still save a video that has downloads disabled.
But is it risky? We already know that apps can detect whether or not you’re screen recording – companies like Snapchat go as far as to actively notify the other person when your screen has been recorded. But does TikTok have a similar feature? Will people know if you’re screen recording their TikToks?
To test this out, I disabled downloads on my TikTok account, then logged into a separate account on another device. Using the iPhone’s screen recording feature, I went and screen recorded all of my TikToks.
At no point did TikTok ever send a notification to my account. When I went to check my notifications within the TikTok app itself, I also found no evidence that any of the TikToks were ever screen recorded.
Therefore, it appears that TikTok does not send notifications for screen recordings either.
For more information, see this article: Does TikTok Notify When You Screenshot / Screen Record?
Does TikTok Themselves Know?
We’ve established that TikTok creators have no way to know who has saved or downloaded their videos. But what about TikTok themselves? Does TikTok know if you’ve saved someone’s video?
The answer is yes. Not only can TikTok themselves see everyone who has saved a video, they likely also store this information to improve their recommendation algorithms.
TikTok collects an extreme amount of data about how you interact with their platform. It is almost certain they are actively keeping lists of every video that you’ve chosen to download.
Interestingly enough, this information is not provided when you request your data from TikTok. However, it is a near certainty that it is saved anyway – this is extremely common practice among the big social media apps.
One way to download videos without even TikTok knowing is to use a TikTok downloader website – there are plenty of them online.
However, these are not officially supported by TikTok and using one requires extra steps.
What Does TikTok Send Notifications For?
Although TikTok does not send notifications to creators when their videos are downloaded, they do send notifications out for other things.
Some examples include:
- When videos are liked (these may be grouped together if the person is receiving many likes.)
- When videos are favorited (as of Q4 2022.)
- Comments
- Follow requests (for private accounts.)
- Community guidelines violations
- Direct messages
- Responses to comments
This is why accidentally liking or commenting on a video can be risky – if you’re the only person that’s liked it recently but they realized their download counter went up, they may realize that you were the person that downloaded it.
Therefore, you have to be careful to avoid any uncomfortable or awkward situations!
You should keep in mind that large creators with tens of thousands of followers or more receive an extremely large amount of interaction each day. This means that they may not realize you’ve liked one of their videos, even if you’re liking one that is quite old.
Larger creators have also seen their fair share of strange or unusual behavior, so nothing you do is likely to stand out all that much.
Actions are much more likely to be noticed by smaller accounts, who don’t receive a high volume of notifications each day.
Conclusion
TikTok does not send any notifications out if you save someone’s TikTok, or even if you capture it using your device’s screen recording function. However, other signs may show that you’ve been viewing their videos.
Therefore, you should keep this in mind while downloading people’s videos.
I hope that this article has answered your questions. Of course, if there’s anything else you’d like to know about TikTok, feel free to ask using the comment form below.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister
Perhaps in the future, Tiktok will send notifications, telling the owners who have downloaded their videos. This will be better for both parties.
Tekkaus(Quote)