You open TikTok ready to finish editing that video you’ve been working on and your drafts are gone. Just gone. All of them. I know that sinking feeling in your stomach because I’ve been there too and it’s absolute bullshit.
Let me show you how to get your TikTok drafts back and why they disappeared in the first place. Some of these methods actually work!
Why Your TikTok Drafts Vanished
Before we fix it let’s understand what happened. TikTok drafts aren’t saved on TikTok’s servers like your published videos. They’re stored locally on your phone. That means if anything happens to your phone or the app your drafts can disappear.
Common reasons drafts vanish: You switched to a different TikTok account (drafts are account specific), you updated or reinstalled the TikTok app, you got a new phone and didn’t transfer them, your phone ran a cleaner app that deleted TikTok’s cache, or TikTok just glitched out because the app does that sometimes.
Understanding this is important because it affects how you recover them…
Check If You’re Logged Into The Right Account
This sounds stupid but it’s the most common reason people think their drafts are gone. If you use multiple TikTok accounts your drafts are tied to specific accounts. These motherfuckers at TikTok don’t make this clear at all!
Open TikTok and tap your profile icon in the bottom right. Check which account you’re logged into at the top. If it’s not your main account tap it and switch accounts.
Once you’re on the right account tap profile again and look for the drafts section. See that number next to Drafts? That’s how many you have saved on this account on this device.
If you see your drafts there congrats, you just panicked for nothing 🙂
Check Your Phone’s Gallery
When you save a TikTok as a draft it might also save to your phone’s gallery if you had that setting turned on. Worth checking!
Open your phone’s Gallery or Photos app. Look for a folder called TikTok. Your drafts might be sitting right there as regular video files.
If you find them you can just upload them to TikTok again. Not ideal because you lose any in-app edits you made but at least the video itself isn’t gone…
Try Logging Out And Back In
Sometimes TikTok just needs a refresh. Logging out and back in can make disappeared drafts reappear. I’m not playing, this feels like voodoo but it works sometimes.
Go to your profile, tap the three lines in the top right for settings. Scroll down and tap Log out. Then log back in with your account.
Check your drafts section again. Did they come back? If yes, great. If no, keep reading…
Check Other Devices
Remember how I said drafts are stored locally on your device? That means if you made a draft on your iPad it won’t show up on your iPhone even if you use the same account.
Grab any other phones or tablets where you’ve used TikTok. Open the app on each one, go to your profile, and check for drafts. You might find them sitting on a device you forgot about!
Restore From Phone Backup (iPhone Users)
If you back up your iPhone to iCloud regularly there’s a chance your drafts are in a previous backup. This only works if you haven’t made a new backup since the drafts disappeared.
Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings. When your phone restarts choose Restore from iCloud Backup and pick a backup from before your drafts vanished.
WARNING: This erases your current phone data and restores everything from that backup. Only do this if those drafts are really important and you’re willing to lose any new data since that backup 🙁
Use Recovery Software (Last Resort)
If nothing else worked you can try data recovery software. There are apps like iMyFone D-Back for iOS or EaseUS MobiSaver for Android that scan your phone for deleted files including TikTok drafts.
These apps usually have a free scan so you can see if your drafts are recoverable before paying. Download the software, connect your phone, run a scan, and see if it finds your TikTok videos.
I’m not going to lie to you, recovery software is hit or miss. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But if you had 50 drafts you spent hours on it might be worth trying…
The Harsh Truth About TikTok Drafts
Here’s what TikTok doesn’t tell you clearly enough. Drafts are NOT backed up. They’re not synced across devices. They’re just sitting in your phone’s storage hoping nothing bad happens.
If you delete the TikTok app your drafts are gone. If you clear the app’s data they’re gone. If you factory reset your phone without backing up they’re gone. If you get a new phone and don’t manually transfer them they’re gone.
This is by design but it’s also bullshit. Every other app backs stuff up to the cloud but TikTok stores everything locally. What the fuck is happening here? It’s frustrating as hell when you lose work you put hours into!
How To Never Lose Drafts Again
Learn from this pain you assholes. Here’s how to protect your drafts going forward.
Turn on Save to device before you save as draft. This way even if TikTok loses the draft you’ll have the video file in your gallery. Go to TikTok Settings > Privacy > turn on Save to Photos/Gallery.
Use cloud backup. Set up Google Photos or iCloud to automatically back up your phone’s videos. Then even if you lose the draft the raw video is safe in the cloud.
Don’t use phone cleaner apps or if you do whitelist TikTok so it doesn’t delete TikTok’s data. Those cleaner apps love deleting cache and app data which includes your drafts.
Before getting a new phone save all your drafts as videos to your gallery or upload them as private posts. Don’t trust that they’ll transfer automatically because they won’t!
If a draft is really important export it immediately. Don’t leave it sitting in drafts for weeks hoping it stays there. TikTok updates, glitches, and bugs can wipe them out…
When Drafts Are Really Gone For Good
Sometimes despite trying everything your drafts are just gone. It sucks but you gotta accept it and move on.
If you reinstalled TikTok without backing up first those drafts are gone forever. If your phone crashed and you had to factory reset without a backup they’re gone. If you switched phones and traded in the old one before transfering drafts they’re gone.
Trust me on this one, I’ve seen people lose 100+ drafts and it’s heartbreaking. But sitting there trying recovery method after recovery method when the data is genuinely erased just wastes time you could spend recreating content.
Bottom Line
TikTok drafts disappearing is usually because they’re stored locally on your device not in the cloud. Check if you’re on the right account, look in your phone’s gallery, try logging out and back in, check other devices, and if you’re desperate try recovery software.
But the real solution is preventing it from happening again. Turn on save to device, use cloud backups, be careful with cleaner apps, and export important drafts immediately.
Losing drafts you spent hours editing absolutely sucks. But now you know why it happened and how to protect yourself going forward. Learn from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again!
You can kiss my ass TikTok for not backing this stuff up properly…
Works for iPhone and Android. Recovery success depends on how the drafts were lost and whether data still exists on the device. Prevention is way better than recovery.