How to Export Your TikTok Favorites: Every Method That Works in 2026

Short answer: yes, you can export your TikTok favorites — the official data download gives you every saved video's link and date in one file. Here's the exact procedure, what's actually in the file, and how to back up the videos themselves.

Updated July 2026 · by the Trove team

What you can and can't export

Set expectations first, because the two things people want are very different:

• Links + metadata (official, free, easy): TikTok's data export gives you a complete list of your favorites — each video's URL and the date you saved it. No titles, no thumbnails, no video files.
• The actual video files (third-party, desktop, fiddlier): downloading your favorites as playable MP4s requires a third-party tool, and anything the creator already deleted is gone forever.

Most people want the first as insurance and the second only for a handful of irreplaceable saves. Both methods below.

Method 1 — The official data export, step by step

1. Open TikTok → Profile → menu (three lines, top right) → Settings and privacy.
2. Tap Account → Download your data.
3. Under "Select data to download," choose Select all — or at minimum Activity, which is where favorites live.
4. Under file format, pick JSON (why below).
5. Tap Request data. Preparation typically takes anywhere from a few hours to about four days; you'll get a notification.
6. When ready, go back to the same screen's Download data tab and download the archive. Don't procrastinate: the link expires after a few days, and then you're re-requesting and re-waiting.

JSON or TXT? JSON, always. It's structured data — every favorite is a tidy record with its link and date — which means a script, a spreadsheet, or another app can actually do something with it. TXT is a flat printout you can only eyeball.

What's inside the export

Unzip the archive and open the JSON (any text editor works; it's readable, just dense). Favorites live under the Activity section as a "Favorite Videos" list — each entry a date paired with a link, newest first, like:

You don't need to be a developer: search the file for "Favorite" to jump to the list, and paste links into a browser to check what they were. The export also contains far more than favorites — liked videos, full watch history, search history, comments, DMs metadata, and login records. That bonus material is occasionally useful (the watch-history list can rescue a video you never saved — see searching your saved TikToks) and genuinely sensitive, which brings us to the privacy warning below.

Method 2 — Downloading the actual video files

For the saves you'd mourn — a family video, a tutorial you rewatch monthly — links aren't enough, because links die when creators delete. The established tool here is myfaveTT, a desktop Chrome extension that logs into your account in your browser and bulk-downloads your favorited videos as files, with metadata.

Honest caveats: it's desktop-only (no phone version of this workflow), bulk downloads take a while on big libraries, videos already deleted by their creators are unrecoverable, and downloaded copies are for your personal archive — reposting other people's work is a different thing entirely; respect creators' rights. Treat this as a fire safe for the top 1% of your saves, not a routine.

Method 3 — From dead list to living library

Here's the uncomfortable truth about your fresh export: it's a wall of naked URLs. Six months from now it tells you nothing about which link was the brown-butter pasta. An export is a backup, not a library — it preserves your saves without making them useful.

The upgrade path (and yes, this is where our app enters — Trove is ours): re-save the keepers somewhere that reads them. Share a TikTok link to Trove and it transcribes the video, summarizes it, detects what it is — recipe, place, product, tutorial — and files it, searchable by what was actually said in it. Work through your export's greatest hits over a coffee: open link, tap Share, pick Trove, next. Honest scope: it's per-link via the share sheet (no bulk JSON import), and links whose source videos were deleted can't be resurrected by any app. Free to download with 100 free AI credits; unlimited AI is $2.99/month or $19.99/year. iPhone, iOS 17+.

Privacy warning: handle the export like a diary

Your TikTok export contains your complete search history, watch history, and login records with timestamps — a disturbingly complete portrait of your attention. Store the file somewhere encrypted or at least private (iCloud Drive with Advanced Data Protection, a password-protected archive — not your desktop, not a shared family computer), and never upload the raw archive to random "TikTok analyzer" websites, which is exactly the data they're hoping you'll hand over.

Why export at all?

Three scenarios make the case: account lockouts (hacked, banned, or a forgotten password on an old phone number — your favorites go with the account), creator deletions (the recipe you cook monthly can vanish any Tuesday), and platform mortality — Pocket users learned this the hard way when the service shut down in 2025 and the export window closed for good that November (the full story is in our Pocket alternatives guide). Fifteen minutes of export request today is what "I should have backed that up" looks like when it's done on time. A sensible rhythm: re-export once or twice a year, and keep your true keepers in a library you control — organized so you can actually find them (see organizing your saved TikToks).

Turn the backup into a library

Re-share your keepers to Trove — every video transcribed, summarized, and findable by asking.

Free download · 100 free AI credits · Pro from $2.99/mo · iPhone, iOS 17+