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How To Disable Sharing On Your TikTok Videos

Last Updated: September 26, 2019

TikTok is a very positive place to hang out and has a lot less toxicity than other social networks. It isn’t all sunshine and roses though. This is social media after all. So while there is less trouble on TikTok than on other networks, you still have to be aware of people. You could turn your account completely private but that defeats the object of social media. Instead, you can tweak your account to offer some protection while still putting yourself out there.

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I’ll show you how to disable sharing on your TikTok videos to prevent people sharing them and show you some privacy settings you might like to tweak to protect yourself from harm. I’ll also show you the setting that prevents anyone downloading your videos too.

Disable TikTok video sharing

To disable TikTok video sharing, you essentially need to make your account private. This is less than ideal on a social network but if you’re having issues or want to ease yourself into using TikTok, this is how to do it. Once you have installed the app and signed up, you can modify many privacy settings within the app.

  1. Log into TikTok and select your profile.
  2. Select the three dot menu icon in the top right.
  3. Select Privacy and Safety.
  4. Toggle Private Account to on.

Setting your account to private means any video you upload will not be visible to anyone except your friends. Nobody will be able to see, share or download it except those friends. It also means that you will see an alert whenever someone sends a friend request so you can manually approve them, or not.

There are some other settings within Privacy and Safety you may like to try.

  • Who Can Send Me Comments will influence whether anyone, friends or nobody can comment on your videos or send you comments.
  • Who can Duet With Me will control who can request a duet and add you as a video duet. You can choose Everyone, Friends or turn it off.
  • Who Can React to Mehas the same filters to limit the reactions you can get while using TikTok.
  • Who Can Send Me Messages is self-explanatory. You can allow anyone, just friends or nobody to send you messages.
  • Allow Downloadwe’ll get to in a minute.
  • My Block Listis a manual block list of people you don’t want to interact with on TikTok.

If you’re in Privacy and Safety on TikTok, you may as well check these settings out and make sure they are what and where you want them.

The block list is very useful if you’re happy using TikTok but have issues with just one or two people. Adding them to the block list means you can leave your account open but not have to contend with specific users. This may be a more effective way to use the app that going private.

Disable downloading of TikTok videos

A recent update to TikTok introduced the ability to stop people downloading TikTok videos you upload to the app. This was a very welcome move as it had been requested for the longest time. Not just by rights holders who don’t want users downloading videos instead of watching then on TikTok and engaging with them but from all kinds of users.

TikTok finally introduced the ability to prevent downloads but didn’t make much of a noise about it.

Here’s how to disable TikTok video sharing:

  1. Select the three dot menu icon in the top right of your TikTok profile.
  2. Select Privacy and Safety.
  3. Select Allow Download and turn if off.

TikTok has this setting at Enabled by default which allows anyone to download your video to their device if they want to. If you want to prevent that, switch it to the Off position. From that moment on, nobody will be able to download your video. This setting will not disable any videos already downloaded but will prevent anyone else from downloading them.

Ideally, this should not be your default setting. The entire purpose of TikTok is to share and be shared. However, if you’re having issues with creeps or don’t like the idea of people downloading your videos, you are free to use this setting however you like. Just bear in mind that your friends won’t be able to download your videos either.

Have you have issues with anyone on TikTok? Needed to use the privacy settings to avoid creeps? Tell us about it below if you have!