TikTok is a popular short-form video social media platform with over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide [1]. Users can upload videos, follow other accounts, and interact with content. Each TikTok user has a public profile with a profile picture.
Sometimes you may want to save another user’s public profile picture for any number of reasons. For example, you may want to showcase fan art or credit a creator. The good news is it’s easy to save someone’s public profile picture on TikTok. This guide will walk through the quick process.
Note that you can only save public profile pictures on TikTok. Private accounts do not allow downloading or saving their profile pictures. We will only cover how to save public profile photos in this guide.
Locate the Profile You Want
The first step is to open the TikTok app and find the profile of the person whose picture you want to save. Make sure the account is public – you can only save pictures from public profiles. Private accounts don’t allow downloading of profile pictures.
To find someone on TikTok, tap the search icon at the bottom and type in their username, full name, or any keywords related to their account. For example, if you want to find celebrity profiles, you could search their name. The search results will display profiles matching your search.
Tap on the profile picture or username of the account you want. This will open up their public profile page where you can access their profile photo.
Make sure the account does not have a private account icon showing a lock symbol next to their handle. Private accounts prevent non-followers from saving or downloading any pictures or videos.
Open the Profile Page
Once you have located the profile you want to save the picture from, the next step is to open their TikTok profile page. To do this:
Tap on the profile image or username of the account. This will take you directly to that TikTok user’s profile page. You can find profile images and usernames on the main feed, under comments, or anywhere else you encounter other users on TikTok.
Tapping the profile photo or username is the fastest way to get to someone’s profile. This will open their page and allow you to view their bio info, videos, and of course – their profile photo.
You can also search for the user’s name or username in the TikTok search bar. Type their name and tap the result to be taken to their profile. This method may be necessary if you don’t have immediate access to their profile image or username.
Tap on the Profile Picture
Once you have opened up the profile page of the user, the next step is to tap on their profile picture. To do this:
Tap and hold on the profile picture for a few seconds. After holding your finger on the image for 2-3 seconds, a menu will pop up.
This menu will give you different options like saving, reporting, or sharing the profile picture. The option we want is ‘Save Image’, which allows us to save the profile picture directly to your camera roll.
Tap ‘Save Image’
Once you tap on the profile picture to bring up the expanded view, a menu will appear at the bottom of the screen. This menu will have an option to ‘Save Image’. According to Business Insider, you should tap this option to save the profile picture to your device.
As explained on TTSave, tapping ‘Save Image’ will begin the process of downloading the selected profile picture to your device’s local storage. This allows you to save a copy of the image so you can access it later outside of the TikTok app.
Allow Access to Photos
After tapping ‘Save Image’, a permission pop-up will appear from TikTok to allow access to your photos. This allows TikTok to save the profile picture to your camera roll.
Make sure to tap ‘Allow’ on this pop-up prompt to grant TikTok access to your device’s photos. If you tap ‘Don’t Allow’, TikTok will not be able to save the profile picture.
You should see the prompt that says “Allow ‘TikTok’ to access your photos?” – tap on ‘Allow’ to proceed.
Find the Image in Your Photos
Once you’ve saved the TikTok profile picture, you can find it easily in your phone’s Photos app. Simply open the Photos app and navigate to the ‘Recent’ section. The TikTok profile picture you just saved will be there along with your other most recent photos.
According to a Reddit user, the option to save images to your camera roll is still available in TikTok’s sharing options. When you select ‘Save to camera roll’, it will prompt you to choose which photos you want to save (Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/vfs5uk/where_does_the_tiktok_app_store_saved_photos/).
So after saving the profile picture in TikTok, head to your Photos app and you’ll find it waiting for you in the ‘Recent’ section.
Crop or Edit the Image
After saving the profile picture to your photos, you have the option to crop or edit the image before saving a final version to your library. The Photos app on iPhone has several built-in editing tools that allow you to customize the image.
To access the editing options, open the image in Photos and tap ‘Edit’ at the top right. From here you can crop the image by pinching to zoom in and dragging the corners to remove any unwanted parts. You can also rotate or straighten the image if needed.
The Photos editing interface provides filters that allow you to alter the color and lighting of the image. You can make adjustments to elements like brightness, contrast, highlights and shadows. There are options to sharpen the image or reduce noise. You can even add effects like mono or silhouette.
Overall, the editing tools in the Photos app provide a lot of ways to customize the profile picture before saving your own copy to the camera roll or sharing it. With a few taps you can crop the image, apply filters, adjust lighting and color, and add effects to get the profile picture looking just right.
Save the Image
Once you have cropped or edited the profile picture to your liking, the next step is to save the final image to your photos. To do this, tap the ‘Done’ button in the upper right corner of the screen. This will take you back to the editing screen.
Here, tap ‘Save Photo’ to save the cropped profile picture. You can choose to save the image to your Camera Roll or to a specific photo album if you want to organize it.
According to Apple’s support guide, “Tap your storage device (below Locations), then tap Save” to choose where to save the image [1].
Once satisfied with the saved location, tap ‘Done’ again to finalize saving the profile picture to your device’s photo library. You can now access and use the profile picture as needed.
Conclusion
Saving someone’s profile picture on TikTok is a simple process that can be summarized in a few steps:
- Locate the profile page of the user whose picture you want to save.
- Tap on their profile picture to open it full screen.
- Tap the “Save Image” button in the bottom right corner.
- Allow TikTok access to your phone’s photos.
- Find the saved image in your phone’s Photos app.
- Optionally crop or edit the image as needed.
- Save the final image to keep it.
The main limitation is that you need to have TikTok installed on your phone to save the image. On desktop, you can right click the profile picture and save image. Saved profile pictures can be used as contact photos, shared on other social media platforms, or edited into TikTok videos and other creative projects.
Overall, saving a TikTok profile photo is a quick and easy process on mobile. With the image saved, you can use it for a variety of purposes beyond just viewing someone’s profile on TikTok.
