TikTok Now Allows Users Fast Forward Through Videos

TikTok videos aren’t what you would call long, but sometimes you might want to skip a few seconds ahead — especially now that the videos can be up to three minutes long. Or you may have a favorite moment that you want to replay, over and over and over. Either way, Tiktok is finally allowing people fast forward through videos, as it rolls out its new, much longer posts. While the company has always specialised in short videos – and so fast-forwarding has probably not been especially high on many users’ priorities – the company is making those short videos slightly less short with a new update.

It recently announced that the maximum length of video for all users will change from 60 seconds to three minutes, opening up the possibility of much longer posts. With that, however, watching certain bits of any particular post is likely to become more difficult, since seeing it again will mean watching the whole post. Now the company is offering users the option to let people scan forward and back through videos, without having to watch on repeat. The option appears at the bottom of videos and can be used in the same way as the options on other more traditional video platforms such as YouTube.

It appears to be in the process of being rolled out, and so might not appear for all users or all on all videos. The company has also traditionally only offered the progress indicator on longer videos, and so it might never appear on all posts. When it does show, there will be a slightly thicker version of the progress line that appears at the bottom. One press will change how it looks, opening up a dot that shows the progress through the video. Grabbing that dot can be used to scan forward and back, searching through the post.

How to fast-forward through a TikTok videos

When you’re playing a TikTok video, look at the bottom of the video for a faint white line. You will probably not see it in all videos; after some experimenting, I found that I was mainly finding it in the longer videos. If you do see it, then you can use it to go forward and back:

• You should also see a slightly thicker white line progress as the video progresses.
• Touch the thicker white line and it will highlight, with a dot at the end indicating how far you are in the video.
• Press the dot and use it to move the video ahead or back.