You’ve probably got TikTok, like a billion other people. You’re probably addicted. Swiping through fast-paced, looping content that runs the gamut from over-used memes to surprising original content is hard to pass up. So much so that the format has been stolen by other services, from Reels on Instagram and Facebook to Snapchat’s Spotlight.
What if you’re a TikTok content maker who wants to share your perfect video elsewhere? Or what if you simply must have a favorite video to keep forever? (You know, for your own personal use, not for profit, so as not to infringe the intellectual property rights of the original maker, because that would be a crappy move on your part.) How do you download that video, and without the TikTok logo watermark dead-center on the video? Here’s how.
Grab TikTok Videos With the Watermark
This is the easiest way to download a TikTok video, because you can instantly do it on your mobile device, right from within the TikTok app.
Hold down a finger on the video, and in the menu that pops up, tap Save Video at the top. (Note: this only works if the creator marks the video as “Public.” If it’s listed as “Private,” you won’t see the save option.) The video is placed in your phone’s camera roll, and you’ll see options to share the video from there to SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp, or other services.
You can’t do this at all on the desktop via Tiktok.com, but you could always do a video screen capture—complete with the watermark, which lasts the length of the video and moves around.
The upside for the content creator is that the TikTok logo watermark, complete with the creator’s name, equals instant branding. The downside is that not everyone wants the watermark. Especially if it’s your video in the first place, and you plan to re-post it to other services, to maximize reach without duplicating effort. But what’s the fix?
Get Rid of the Watermark
To ditch the watermark on videos you’ve already downloaded, tools like iMyFone MarkGo (Windows or macOS), RemoveLogoNow (Windows), Video Eraser (iOS), or Apowersoft Online Video Watermark Remover (on the web) can do the job. But results can look sloppy because they essentially blur the watermark by adding extra pixels to the video frames (some for a fee).
This method might work okay for some videos, especially if the background is still. But it can ruin auto-generated captions or overlay text in the video, close to the center of the frame.
A slightly better option is video-editing software like the free VideoProc Vlogger, which covers the watermark with your own logo or some other image, even an animated GIF. It’s almost like adding a GIF sticker to the video that could have been added when you uploaded it to TikTok.
Grab TikToks Without the Watermark
The best bet is to download the video without any watermark in the first place, for free. For this to work, you turn to third-party apps and helper websites, for which you’ll need the URL for the individual TikTok videos.
Musically Down is one of the best helper sites, with a good look and even a concise how-to video. Enter a link for a TikTok video or a song listed on the service, and you’ll get a quick preview, including the video’s title, and options to grab it as an MP4 video or an MP3 audio file.
If you do this on the desktop, but prefer to get the video on your phone, there’s a QR code to scan—but it doesn’t actually take you to the video to grab. You’ll have to find the URL again to do it on mobile (click Share > Copy Link). That said, Musically Down works just fine on mobile.
Website helpers, meanwhile, work even with the TikTok vids that are marked as private. Musically Down has a companion app for Android called Video Downloader for Tiktok—but there are several apps in Google Play Store with that name, so be careful. Other helper websites include SaveTik and SnapTik.
If you prefer the app route, in addition to the one above for Android, iOS has SaveTok (also on Android) and RepostTik, among others. But the apps seem to occasionally run into legal troubles and get shut down or lose features, so the websites are the preferred method.
One more tip: Beware Copyrighted Sounds. If you download a TikTok video—even if it’s your own—and it includes audio that is the intellectual property of someone else, it doesn’t matter if it was okay on TikTok, which provides a library of sounds. Services like Facebook have AI monitoring uploads for that kind of thing. At best, they’ll let you upload a video sans audio; at worst, they’ll shut you out. Use TikTok’s sister app CapCut or others like Inshot or Splice to strip out the audio, as well as do a lot more serious video editing. All are available for iOS or Android.
Good luck and happy, safe, and smart downloading.
