TikTok provides a watch history of everything you ever viewed on the app. This can be helpful if you want to re-watch a video you really enjoyed but forgot where to find it. Your watch history stores videos you have seen for 180 days, which leaves plenty of time to find the videos you would like to re-watch.
However, what if you are more privacy-oriented and would prefer that TikTok not maintain an extensive history of everything you have ever viewed on the app? For that, you need to know how to turn off watch history on TikTok.
Keep reading to learn how you can easily disable your TikTok viewing history.
What Is Your TikTok Watch History?
Before we go any further, it’s a good idea to understand what watch history is on TikTok.
In essence, your watch history is a record of everything you have ever seen on the popular social media platform. Any time you watch the video even for a second, TikTok will consider that video as having been watched by you.
This is a handy feature for when you remember seeing a video you really enjoyed, but cannot remember who the creator is. Instead of attempting to find it amid a sea of TikTok videos, you can readily head to your watch history and quickly find it.
Another key feature of your watch history is that TikTok’s algorithm uses your watch history to determine what videos it recommends in your “For You” feed.
While it may seem like you are giving away some of your privacy to TikTok by maintaining a watch history, no other users can see your watch history. This means none of your followers will be able to see anything you watched.
Using the watch history feature is as easy as heading over to it and tapping on a video you would like to watch. However, if you are reading this, you probably are looking to disable this feature, which is why we will go over reasons why turning it off could be helpful.
Benefits to Turning off TikTok Watch History
Although your watch history cannot be seen by other users, there are still a few key benefits to turning it off, at least temporarily. These include:
Prevent the Algorithm From Learning About You
Since TikTok’s algorithm uses your watch history to determine what videos to display in your “For You” feed, you might want to prevent that from happening. The algorithm will no longer be potentially influencing you through its suggestions. This could help if you are looking to get out of the content bubble the for You feed often creates.
Enjoy Greater Privacy
Turning off your watch history will definitely give you an added layer of privacy. If you are looking to prevent prying eyes seeing what you have watched if they manage to take control of your phone, this is an easy solution to adopt. Have peace of mind and remove privacy concerns by disabling your watch history.
Become a More Creative Creator
If you are a creator then you already know that you have your own creative process. This, however, may get unduly influenced by your For You feed based on your watch history. If you turn it off, you have a greater potential to discover fresh ideas to spark more novel creativity. This, in turn, can help you become a more unique content creator offering something a little different from your peers.
Discover Different Kinds of Content
When you pause your TikTok watch history, you suddenly open up the ability to discover all different kinds of videos. Instead of seeing videos in just one or two niches due to the algorithm customizing your content viewing experience, you get many. There is a lot of great content on the app that may go unseen by you due to your watch history training the algorithm to show you too much content within one niche.
Where You Can Find Your TikTok Watch History
Your watch history is easy to find. Take the following steps to get to it:
- Open the TikTok app
- Go to your profile page by tapping on the profile icon at the bottom of the screen
- Tap on the hamburger menu at the top-right of the screen
- Tap on Settings and privacy
- In the Activity Center, find Watch History
Once you get to the Watch History section, you will be able to see a grid of every video you have watched within the past 180 days. Tap on any video to view it again.
Protip: You can even add videos from your Watch History to your favorites if you want an even more condensed collection of videos.
Note: You will only find videos in your Watch History that can be found in creator feeds. Livestreams and stories will not be viewable from within the Watch History section.
How to Turn off Watch History on TikTok
TikTok has made it easy to disable watch history. All you need to do is follow these steps:
- Open the TikTok app
- Tap on your profile icon in the bottom bar on your screen
- Tap on the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right of the screen
- Tap on Settings and privacy
- Find the Content & Activity section where Watch History is located
- Toggle your Watch history off
Protip: You can also delete your entire previous watch history by tapping on Clear history.
Downsides to Turning off TikTok Watch History
While we went over the benefits to disable your watching history, you should also be aware of the potential downsides to doing so. Here are the top consequences you may discover once you have turned off your TikTok watch history:
You No Longer Receive Helpful Video Suggestions
Not providing the algorithm with enough data has the drawback of it lacking information for a curated For You feed. This means that when you disable your watch history, you are potentially going to miss out on seeing videos that you would enjoy.
You Will Miss Out on Trends
Trends come and go on TikTok, and without having a customized content feed, you may miss out on trends and challenges relevant to your niche and that your audience enjoys. Since TikTok is a social media platform that leans heavy on emerging trends, you may find that the lack of participation in popular challenges and trends affects your popularity, engagement, and success on the app.
You May Not Receive Enough Inspiration
While having no algorithmic input into your content feed could expose you to content in other niches, the opposite could also happen. You could get inspiration from your watch history based on content you have seen before. If you are just seeing random videos from across the platform, it may not be relevant enough to your niche or style, and you may end up making the same kinds of videos over and over.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to turn off watch history on TikTok, as well as the pros and cons of doing so, you should consider whether you should still do it. What you can do is experiment with disabling it temporarily and seeing how your TikTok content feed looks afterwards. Whatever you decide to do, you now have the knowledge of how to disable your watch history.
