How to Delete Your TikTok Watch History
If you want to freshen up your TikTok recommendations, you’ll want to know how to delete your watch history. Here’s how.
TikTok has become a global cultural phenomenon since it first came on the scene in 2017. Recent figures suggest more than 1.5 billion people use the short-form video-sharing platform each month. One of the most helpful features is the TikTok watch history, which can help you get back to that video you loved and wanted to duet but accidentally swiped away from.
As nice as the watch history is, sometimes you may want to turn it off. Until 2022, you could turn your watch history off on TikTok altogether, but that’s no longer true. Just like the long-lost ability to stop people from reposting your content, TikTok changed things up. What you can do, however, is delete the history. Let’s look at how to do that.
How To Delete Your Watch History on TikTok
Clearing your watch history isn’t difficult, but the option is somewhat buried in the app’s settings. It’s certainly not as easy as deleting videos you’ve posted. Here’s how to get to it.
- Open the TikTok app on your mobile device. Tap your Profile tab, then the Three-Line Menu at the top right corner.
- Next, tap Settings and privacy.
- Swipe down to the Content & Display section; tap Activity Center.
- From the next menu, select Watch history.
- Tap Select at the top right corner.
- Now, tap each video you want to delete from your watch history. If you want to clear them all, choose Select all watch history in the bottom left corner.
- Once you’ve made your selections, tap the Delete in the bottom right corner.
- Confirm your choice by tapping Delete in the next dialog.
Once that’s done, your watch history will be blank. TikTok states it will continue to maintain some of that history data for a while to optimize your experience on the platform.
When Is It a Good Idea to Delete This Information?
You may want to clear your TikTok watch history for a few reasons. Doing so can improve your app performance since the watch history can take up a lot of storage space on your device. This might slow the app down, making it sluggish when you’re scrolling through content.
The storage space used by the watch history can also impact your ability to download other apps, photos, videos, or files. If you’ve been on TikTok for several years and never deleted your watch history, it could be affecting how well your phone performs.
Finally, the videos TikTok recommends to you are influenced by your watch history. If you want to change up what you see but don’t want to start from scratch, you can’t just disable the TikTok watch history. Deleting it, though, will help freshen up your recommendations.