Back up your TikTok before you delete anything
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Order matters. Request the export, wait for it, then clean up. Do it the other way around and you find out what you lost after it is gone.
TikTok’s Requesting your data page is the whole process. You request the file from inside the app, TikTok assembles it, and some days later it shows up as a download that expires. Folha de S.Paulo walked through the same flow with screens, which helps, because TikTok keeps moving these menus around. The wait is the reason this article exists. Nobody plans for it once they have already decided to delete everything.
What the export gives you and what it does not
You get your data, which is not the same as your content in a form you would publish again. Depending on the format you request, the videos may come as files and the rest as text: captions, dates, activity records, settings.
You do not get your account. Views, comments, the URL people saved, the fact that a video ranked for something: none of that survives in a zip file. If a post has value because of where it sits, the backup keeps the pixels and loses the value. That is one more reason to hide instead of delete whenever you are unsure, and I explain it in private or delete.
When the file arrives, open it. Check that the videos you care about are in there and that they play. I have heard enough “I have a backup” stories end badly that this is the one instruction I would repeat twice. Then put the file somewhere that is not only your phone.
While you wait
The export takes days, so use them. Decide your cutoff date. Decide whether you are hiding or deleting. Run the easy pass on reposts, which is safe, reversible and does not need the backup at all.
If you cannot remember what is in your archive, that is a search problem. FindMyTok indexes your published videos by what was said in them, so you can find the three posts that mention a company name instead of scrolling for an hour trying to recognise thumbnails.
Once the export is safe, filter to the period, select the batch, confirm once and let FixMyTok run it. Deleting is documented as reversible for 30 days through Recently Deleted, per TikTok’s documentation, so you end up with two safety nets for one afternoon of waiting.