How To Delete TikToks Without Losing The Likes (2023 Guide)

Have you ever wanted to delete a TikTok, but didn’t want to lose all of the likes that came with it?

Some people take pride in the number of total likes that are listed on their profile. If you’ve spent time building these up, it makes sense that you wouldn’t want them to disappear when you took down one or more of your TikTok videos.

But does deleting TikToks remove the likes, and how can you prevent this?

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution.

Does Deleting TikToks Remove The Likes?

Unfortunately, by default the answer is yes. If you permanently delete a TikTok, the number of ‘likes’ listed on your profile will go down as well.

If you are completely set on deleting it, there is unfortunately nothing you can do to prevent this.

However, there is a workaround. Instead of deleting the video entirely, make the video private. This will hide it from everybody but you, and still keep all of the likes that the video has acquired.

In fact, if you’ve ever stumbled upon TikTok profiles that had lots of likes listed but no TikToks on their actual page, this is almost certainly what happened.

When you delete a video, the likes are removed. When you make it private however, the likes remain.

Therefore, you should always opt to make videos private instead of deleting them if preserving the likes is important to you. Plus, you can always make the video public again in the future if you change your mind!

Do You Lose The Likes If The Video Is Taken Down For Community Guidelines Violations?

So we know that you lose the likes if you delete the video yourself. What if the video is taken down or placed into review for potential violations of TikTok’s community guidelines?

In this instance, the same exact rules apply.

If the video is completely deleted from your account, you will likely lose the likes associated with it so far.

If it has just been placed into a temporary review and may be posted again later, the likes will stay.

Likewise, if the video has been made private by TikTok and not actually deleted, the likes should should remain on your account as well.

Does Deleting TikToks Negatively Impact Your Account?

You may be wondering – if you delete a TikTok that performed well (it got lots of views and engagement), will it negatively impact your account to delete it? Will removing popular TikToks from your profile hurt your reach on future videos, and are past videos factored into TikTok’s algorithm?

This is a fantastic question, that unfortunately doesn’t have a clear answer.

TikTok has not officially released any details about how their algorithm works. However, anecdotal evidence from top TikTokers has shown that the algorithm may judge you on an account-based level, and having a history of well-performing videos improves the likelihood that new videos will get a boost (even when you don’t factor in their audience.)

TikTok also uses information gained from your previous videos to determine the ‘niche’ of your profile, and gain a better understanding of who they should be showing it to. The more relevant the audience, the better your video will perform.

Therefore, top TikTokers recommend that you avoid deleting videos when possible, and do it slowly if you must. Space out your deleting over several days or weeks rather than immediately taking them all down at one time.

For more information, see: Is It Bad To Delete TikTok Videos? (Answered + Full Details)

Does Deleting TikToks Get You Shadowbanned?

Some people believe that deleting TikToks can get you a shadowban, which suppresses your profile and prevents it from getting any exposure.

However, there is no evidence that deleting TikToks (on their own) will lead you to getting shadowbanned.

Shadowbans occur when you break community guidelines. In regards to deleting TikToks, this is usually caused by people repeatedly deleting and reupload the same TikTok when it doesn’t perform as they had hoped.

In this case, this action can potentially lead to shadowbans, because it may be classified as spam.

Therefore, as long as you aren’t deleting all of your TikToks simply to repost them again, you shouldn’t need to worry.

Why Do Some People Have Likes On The Like Counter, But No Videos Posted?

As mentioned earlier, this is due to people making the videos private.

When the TikTok creator privatizes their videos, the videos still technically remain on their account – as do all the likes associated with them.

However, the videos can only be viewed by the account owner.

Because the videos and the likes still technically exist, they are still counted and appear on the profile page. This is why some people have lots of likes, but no TikToks posted.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, if you delete a TikTok, the likes will also be removed from the like counter.

However, if you make the TikTok private instead, all of the likes will remain and it will have the same effect – nobody but you will be able to see it.

I hope that this article has cleared up some confusion. Of course, if you have any TikTok questions or want to know more, feel free to ask using the comment form below.

Thank you for reading!

– James McAllister