The short answer is yes, drafts do take up some storage space on TikTok. However, the amount of storage used by drafts is usually very small and negligible compared to space taken up by published videos and images. TikTok automatically saves any videos you record or images you upload as drafts if you don’t immediately post them. This allows you to come back and edit or finish them later before publishing. But it also means drafts occupy storage, even if temporarily.
How TikTok drafts work
When you record a video or capture a photo in the TikTok app, it gets saved to your device’s storage as well as TikTok’s servers. If you click the “Next” button after recording but don’t publish it right away, TikTok saves it as a draft. You can find all your draft videos and images by tapping on the “Drafts” icon on the posting page. This is located in the bottom toolbar, represented by a pencil icon.
Drafts remain available in your drafts folder indefinitely until you either publish them or delete them. There is no limit to how many drafts you can store. And they do not get deleted automatically if you don’t post them after a certain period of time. The drafts stay there, occupying some storage space, until you manually remove them.
Why TikTok needs to save drafts
TikTok needs to save draft videos and images to your account so that they are accessible across devices. For example, if you record a draft on your iPhone, you can still find and edit it later after logging in to TikTok on an Android device. Your drafts are synced across platforms thanks to being stored on TikTok’s servers.
Without saving drafts online, you would lose access to any unfinished videos or photos if you switched devices before posting them. The drafts feature allows flexibility to edit content and post when you want without losing your work if you don’t publish it immediately.
How much storage space do drafts use?
In most cases, drafts occupy very little storage space compared to videos and images you actually publish. Here are some storage usage estimates for TikTok drafts:
- Each draft video less than 1 minute long takes up about 3-5 MB.
- Draft videos 1-2 minutes long are around 10 MB.
- Longer videos up to 10 minutes may be 30-60 MB.
- Draft photos are much smaller, only about 400 KB to 1 MB each.
With an average video draft being under 30 MB, you would need to accumulate over 100 unused drafts to get to 3 GB of used space. That’s unlikely for most casual TikTok users. But frequent creators who film and discard many drafts may accumulate gigabytes of drafts over time.
When drafts start using significant storage
While most people don’t need to worry about TikTok drafts eating up phone storage, there are some situations where they can become more problematic:
- If you film very long videos – Drafts longer than 10 minutes may be over 100 MB per file.
- Frequently starting and discarding drafts – Even short videos add up if you make hundreds of unfinished drafts.
- Limited device storage – On phones with only 16GB or 32GB, a few GB of drafts makes a bigger dent.
- Lots of photo drafts – Though smaller than videos, saving hundreds or thousands still adds up.
In these cases, cleaning out old drafts periodically can help free up meaningful storage space. Users with many drafts may see storage gains of anywhere from a few hundred megabytes to a gigabyte or more after removing draft clutter.
Where drafts are stored on your phone
Draft TikTok videos and images get saved in two places – in the TikTok app storage, and also in your device’s native photo gallery or files. iOS saves TikTok draft media to its Camera Roll like any other photo or video. On Android, TikTok drafts go to the DCIM folder.
This means drafts take up space both in your phone’s main storage and within the TikTok app. Deleting the TikTok app removes the app’s storage portion, but your Camera Roll or DCIM folder still have the drafts saved. To completely clear TikTok drafts for storage, you need to remove them both from the TikTok app itself and your device’s native photo gallery.
How to reduce storage used by TikTok drafts
If you want to minimize the storage impact of TikTok drafts, here are some tips:
- Review and delete old drafts you no longer need on a regular basis. This clears the clutter.
- Use shorter video lengths for drafts when possible.
- Limit the number of unused photo drafts you maintain.
- Check draft sizes in your phone gallery and delete large unfinished videos.
- Consider using the TikTok Lite app, which takes up less space.
- Clear the cache and data for the TikTok app to purge drafts.
- Upgrade your phone’s storage if still constrained after minimizing drafts.
Does deleting drafts free up space?
Yes, any drafts deleted within the TikTok app or removed from your camera roll or files will free up used storage space. Since drafts can range from a few megabytes for photos up to 50-100 MB for longer videos, clearing them out can potentially give you back hundreds of megabytes or a few gigabytes.
If storage is a concern, periodically moving old drafts you know you’ll never finish to the trash can help. For most casual users this isn’t an issue. But those recording very long or numerous drafts may see meaningful storage gains from removing unneeded unfinished media files.
Backing up drafts before deletion
If you have drafts you may want to use later, consider backing them up before deletion. You can do this in a few ways:
- Saving a copy to another device first
- Using a file manager to move drafts to cloud storage
- Emailing draft videos and images to yourself
This preserves the drafts but removes them from your phone’s limited storage. Just be sure to actually delete the draft from TikTok after backing up, or it will still occupy space. And check that copies saved externally were successful before clearing.
Final tips on minimizing TikTok draft storage
Here are a final few tips to minimize storage used by TikTok drafts:
- Export drafts you want to keep, then delete local copies from your phone and TikTok.
- Record shorter drafts instead of very long unfinished videos.
- Use TikTok’s editing tools to trim longer videos before saving as drafts.
- Purge drafts after finishing a project or when they pile up.
- Always delete unsuccessful drafts that you don’t plan on completing.
Following these guidelines and periodically clearing old drafts you don’t need will help avoid accumulating gigabytes of unfinished media that eats into your phone’s precious storage.
