8 Easy Ways to Make Your TikTok Account More Private

No one wants their personal information or activity to be on display for the world to see, especially on a huge platform like TikTok. Here are eight settings I’ve tweaked to make my TikTok account more private.

1 Set Your Account to Private

The first and simplest way you can make your TikTok account more private is to set your TikTok account to private. This lets you control who can follow you, view your TikToks, watch your Live videos, and see your liked content and following and followers list. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to the Profile tab.
2. Tap the three-line icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Settings and privacy.
4. Tap Privacy under Account.
5. Finally, toggle on the switch next to Private account under Discoverability.

Keep in mind that existing followers will not be affected by switching to a private account. They’ll still be able to see both your current and future content. If you’d prefer not to interact with someone who already follows you, you’ll need to remove them manually.

2 Hide Your Liked Videos

Whether you have an odd sense of humor or simply prefer to keep your interests private, you can hide your liked videos instead of broadcasting them to your followers. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Profile tab.
2. Tap the three-line icon in the top-right corner of the screen, and then select Settings and privacy.
3. Go to Privacy, and select Liked videos under Interactions.
4. Now, select Only you once the Who can watch your liked videos menu appears.

3 Turn Off Your Activity Status

An embarrassing situation you’ve probably experienced at least once is spending hours on TikTok after telling a friend you were “heading to bed”. I know I have more times than I would like to admit! Next thing you know, they’re messaging you, calling you out because TikTok notified them that you’re still online.

To avoid situations like this, you can disable your activity status on TikTok. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to Profile in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and then tap the three-line icon in the top-right corner of your profile.
2. Now, select Settings and privacy, and then Privacy.
3. Finally, toggle off the switch next to Activity status under Discoverability.

Keep in mind that turning off your activity status has one downside—you won’t be able to see others’ activity status either. So you’ll lose the ability to see if someone’s currently on or when they were last active.

4 Limit Who Can Send You Direct Messages

While I’m a big fan of sharing and receiving TikTok videos with friends through direct messages, the last thing I want is my device buzzing with message requests from strangers because I left a comment on a TikTok video.

Fortunately, TikTok lets you control who can DM you, which is a great way of keeping random requests at bay and enjoying your private time on TikTok. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Switch to the Profile tab, and tap the three-line icon on your profile.
2. Then, go to Settings and privacy > Privacy.
3. Now, tap Direct messages under Interactions.
4. Tap Allow direct messages from, and you’ll see the following four options: Everyone, Suggested friends, Friends, and No one. In my opinion, selecting Friends is usually the way to go. If you’d like to stop receiving direct messages entirely, select No one.

5 Disable Read Status

I have a bad habit of opening TikTok videos that friends and family send me, watching them, and thinking, “I’ll reply later”. Before I know it, days have passed, and I still haven’t responded. The worst part? My friends and family likely think I’m avoiding them since they can see I’ve opened their direct message.

If you’re anything like me, you can disable the read status by following these steps:

1. Tap Profile at the bottom, and then the three-line icon.
2. Go to Settings and privacy > Privacy > Direct messages.
3. Toggle off the switch next to Read Status under Message preferences.

Now, you can watch TikTok videos your followers send you at your convenience without the pressure of having to reply immediately or making them feel bad!

6 Hide Your Following List

Sometimes, you may want to avoid unwanted questions about the different people you follow on TikTok. In such situations, you may want to keep your following list private. You can do this whether you have a public or private TikTok account.

To do so, here’s what you need to do:

1. Tap Profile on the bottom, and then the three-line icon at the top right corner.
2. Now, go to Settings and privacy > Privacy.
3. Tap Following list under Interactions.
4. Finally, select Only you under the Who can see your following list section.

7 Stop TikTok from Suggesting Your Account to Others

If you have a public account, you might not want all your friends, family, and everyday contacts to find it. By default, TikTok suggests your account to contacts, Facebook friends, and people who open links from you or who send links to you. Even if your account is set to private, it can still be suggested to others unless you adjust certain settings. Thankfully, TikTok allows you to control how your account is suggested.

To make these changes, head to Profile, then tap the three-line icon in the top right corner. Next, go to Settings and privacy > Privacy, and tap Suggest your account to others under Discoverability. You’ll see three toggles on the Suggest your account to others page: Contacts, Facebook friends, and People who open or send links to you. Since our goal here is to make our TikTok account more private, simply toggle off all the switches.

8 Turn Profile View History Off

I would be lying if I said there haven’t been times when I’ve investigated people I know in real life on TikTok. What a lot of people fail to realize is that TikTok tracks who views profiles, and this information can be visible to people if they have the Profile View History feature turned on.

So, while you might think you’re doing a great job hiding behind a screen, they could easily see that you checked out their profile. If you wouldn’t like others to know you’ve viewed their profile, follow these steps:

1. Switch to the Profile tab at the bottom, and tap the three-line icon.
2. Go to Settings and privacy > Privacy and then Profile views under Interactions.
3. Finally, toggle off the switch next to Profile view history.

While turning off your profile view history means you’ll no longer see who viewed your TikTok profile, it’s a worthwhile trade off for your privacy.

Privacy is of utmost importance to me when it comes to my socials, and thankfully, TikTok has a ton of settings that allow me to enjoy the platform without compromising my privacy.