TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms, allowing users to create and share short videos. One of TikTok’s useful features is the ability to download your personal data, including your videos, messages, likes and more.
However, some users have reported issues with TikTok data downloads not working properly.
There are instances where the TikTok data download page gets stuck on “Processing request” and goes even beyond the stipulated time TikTok promises will be ready.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the reasons why TikTok data downloads fail and provide detailed troubleshooting steps to help you successfully obtain your data.
Why Your TikTok Data Download Might Not Work
There are a few common reasons why you may be unable to download your TikTok data:
Incorrect Download Requests
TikTok limits how often you can request a data download to prevent system abuse. If you’ve requested your data already in the past few days, TikTok may reject additional requests until the prior download expires.
The platform also only allows one active data download request at a time – submitting another request invalidates any pending requests.
Temporary Technical Issues
Like any platform, TikTok can occasionally suffer outages or glitches that affect certain features. It’s possible you attempted your data download during a temporary issue with TikTok’s download system. Trying again later often resolves this.
Ban or Suspension
If your TikTok account has been suspended or banned either permanently or temporarily, you lose the ability to download your TikTok data.
You must successfully appeal the ban before data downloads become available again.
Restricted Content
TikTok purposely excludes certain content from data downloads, like videos marked private or videos removed for Community Guidelines violations. If your download data seems overly limited, this may be why.
How to Fix TikTok Data Download Not Working or Pending
If your TikTok data failed to download properly, don’t panic! In most cases, you can remedy the issue by following these detailed troubleshooting steps:
Step 1: Make Sure TikTok Isn’t Down
Before trying to fix things on your phone or account, you need to check if TikTok is working properly for everyone else.
An easy way to see that is using the website Down Detector. This site shows when apps like TikTok are having issues by gathering reports from users.
Here’s how to use it:
- Go to downdetector.com on your browser
- Search for “TikTok” and click on the result
- Scroll down to see a chart showing recent problems people had
- Under that, read comments from users about issues they had. See if they match the problem you had.
If the Down Detector page shows TikTok had a spike in issues at the same time your download failed, then TikTok itself is likely at fault.
When the whole app is down, no steps you try will get your download working. You just need to be patient until TikTok fixes the outage for everyone. Keep checking Down Detector until you see the app is back up with no issues.
However, if Down Detector shows TikTok was working fine when your download failed, then something specific to you is blocking access. In that case, you should start carefully troubleshooting based on the next steps below.
Step 2: Review Download Rules and Restrictions
As mentioned above in the reasons section, TikTok places rules and limits on how many data downloads one user can make:
- You can only request a download once every four days
- TikTok only processes one download request at a time – new requests invalidate pending ones
- Private videos don’t appear in download data
- Removed or violating videos won’t download
Check that you have waited the minimum timeframe between requests and don’t have another pending request causing a conflict. Also verify your download data contains what it should based on these restrictions.
Step 3: Retry Your Download on the TikTok Website
The TikTok app and TikTok website use separate systems for data downloads. Even if it failed on mobile, retry making the download request through the TikTok website on your computer:
- Go to TikTok.com and log into your account
- Click your profile picture > Settings
- Click “Download your data.”
- Review info then select Request data download
- Choose file format (JSON or TXT)
- Check email inbox for confirmation notification
Sometimes the web platform succeeds where mobile fails.
Step 4: Temporarily Change Your Password
An additional troubleshooting step that often works is temporarily resetting your account password before trying the data download again:
- On TikTok mobile app, go to your profile > tap 3-Line Menu > Settings and privacy
- Tap Security > Change password
- Enter your current password then set a new temporary password
- Attempt downloading your TikTok data again
- Once download succeeds, change your password back
Resetting authorization seems to clear up tricky access issues.
Step 5: Reach Out to TikTok Customer Support
If you still cannot download your TikTok data after trying all troubleshooting steps, you should directly contact TikTok for further support:
- In the TikTok app, go to your profile > tap 3-Line Menu > Settings and privacy.
- Tap on “Report a problem.”
- Tap the Request category relating to your download issue
- Complete the form detailing your problem downloading data
- Submit ticket and a support representative will further assist
Be sure to include that you unsuccessfully tried all standard troubleshooting suggestions already when explaining your issue. Provide as many specific details as possible about the failure.
What to Do If Your TikTok Account Is Banned
As noted in the initial reasons section, users cannot download TikTok data when their accounts are suspended or banned. If that is why your data is unavailable, you have a few options:
- Appeal the Ban: In the TikTok app, go to your profile, tap Appeal suspension and submit an appeal request form explaining why your account should be restored. If your appeal is approved, data downloads become available again.
- Export Data Before Ban: If you anticipate your TikTok account may soon get banned (for example due to warnings about Community Guidelines violations), quickly export your data before violations accumulate into a suspension. This preserves access to get at least some data.
- Request Data Deletion: Banned or deactivated accounts can still submit data deletion requests to permanently erase data from TikTok’s systems. However, this means you cannot access or save that data elsewhere.
When to Seek Additional Support
Despite your best efforts, TikTok data downloads may still fail or your request might remain stuck in a pending state indefinitely. If you experience any of the below issues, you should directly contact TikTok Support for assistance:
- Remains pending > 1 week with no failure or success
- Receive confusing error messages when attempting download
- Download progress gets stuck midway
- Successfully downloaded data is incomplete
- TikTok rejects your data access without clear reasoning
TikTok Support agents have internal tools to further diagnose and troubleshoot download problems. They can also escalate severe technical issues to TikTok’s engineering team if needed.
With their help, you can hopefully resolve stubborn data download problems that these standard troubleshooting tips cannot fix.
Conclusion
Downloading your personal TikTok data lets you preserve memories and interactions for the long term. However, this useful feature sometimes malfunctions and leaves users without access to their data.
By understanding precisely why TikTok downloads fail and methodically trying different troubleshooting techniques, you can get to the bottom of download issues and regain access to your cherished data.
If problems continue to persist, never hesitate to leverage TikTok’s customer support who are dedicated to resolving account troubles exactly like this.
Just stay the course using the step-by-step advice in this guide and your sought after TikTok data will once again be in your hands.
