If you’ve ever tried to follow along with a TikTok recipe, then you know the unique pain of missing one crucial bit of information and having to rewatch the entire video again, just to hear how many teaspoons of salt you should add. And if you miss something else? Run it back. Watch the whole thing again, bud.
Until recently, TikTok didn’t really let you fast forward or rewind videos in-app. But if you’re trying to follow a set of instructions for a recipe or a DIY project, it’s pretty necessary.
The app recently added in a fast forward and rewind feature, but it isn’t available to all users. The lucky ones that do have the feature have revealed that it only works on videos longer than one minute.
If you do have the feature, all you have to do is tap and hold on the white line at the bottom of a TikTok. The line should get thicker and a white dot should appear. You can shuttle the dot forward or backwards to your desired moment, and a big time stamp should also show up to help you.
For those of us who don’t have the feature yet, there is a slight workaround that allows us to fast forward and rewind to our hearts’ content: downloading the video. Here’s how to do it.
1. Decide on the video you need to fast forward or rewind.
Because you will be downloading the video to your phone, you probably don’t want to go using this trick for every single video. We recommend doing this with instructional videos or something similar where you need to see small, specific moments for longer than a second.
2. Tap on the “Share” button.
Credit: screenshot: Mashable/TikTok
It looks like an arrow at the lower right corner, and houses all the sharing options for TikToks. If the creator enabled the feature, this is where you’ll find the option to save the video.
3. Tap on “Save Video.”
Credit: screenshot: mashable/TikTok
It should be the second or third option on the third row of circle icons (depending on if you’re on a creator’s profile or scrolling through your For You Page.)
If it’s grayed out, that means the creator did not enable the saving feature on this video, and we’re unfortunately out of luck. But if it’s turned on, go ahead and tap away.
4. Go to your Camera Roll, and the video should appear.
The saved TikTok should be in the most recent position on your camera roll. From here, you can slide your finger along the scrubber at the bottom of the screen like any video you have saved in your camera roll. Fast forward, rewind, pause, or rewatch as much as you want!
Since this trick requires saving the video to your phone, we’d recommend deleting it as soon as you’re done using it, especially if you’re low on storage space. Gotta make room for the next video you’ll probably have to download while we wait for TikTok to give us all the ability to scrub through videos in the app!
