The TikTok JSON analyzer

A Rust program to analyze TikTok data and calculate some statistics :

• Logins / App openings
• Videos watched
• Time spent on TikTok per day
• Favorite effects, hashtags, sounds and videos
• Statistics about the likes you left
• Comments posted
• DMs Stats
• Your account's audience stats

If you have an idea for a new stat, share it!

How to get your TikTok data?

In your TikTok app, Head over to Settings > Account > Get my data and ask for JSON.

When the data is ready, download it. It is a zipped folder which contains the file user_data.json (your data).
I will refer to this file as "your data" or "the file".

How to use the program?

You have two options :

1. Compiling it yourself
   1. Make sure rustc and cargo are installed - Check out this link for further information.
   2. In your terminal, run git clone https://github.com/Elazrod56/tiktok_json_analyzer.git
   3. A new folder called tiktok_json_analyser will be created, open it in your terminal.
   4. Place your data file in json/ and name it user_data.json. Normally it is already named as such
   5. Finally, in tiktok_json_analyzer, run cargo run. You will need to be connected to the internet to download the necessary cargo crates.
   6. The data has been printed to the console. Enjoy your reading!
2. Using the binaries
   1. Go into 'releases' and select the latest version
   2. Download the appropriate binary file
   3. Place it in an individual folder. Let's say tiktok_analyzer
   4. Make sure that in tiktok_analyzer there is a json folder containing the data file user_data.json
   5. Open your terminal
   6. On Linux, run ./tiktok_json_analyzer-linux-x64. (note : you might need to make it executable by typing chmod +x tiktok_json_analyzer_linux-x64)
   7. On Windows, run .\tiktok_json_analyzer-win-x64.exe (Make sure to run it in a terminal! Double-clicking the file will open and close a window too rapidly for you to read the output)
   8. The data has been printed to the console. Enjoy your reading!

What if you get an error?

If you get a no such file or directory error, make sure that the TikTok data (user_data.json file) is in the json directory.

If you get another error, feel free to open an Issue. Make sure to provide information about your OS and how you have tried to run the program.

Binaries

• The Linux binary was compiled on Arch Linux 64-bit with Rust 1.70.0. It should run on any Linux distro.
• The Windows binary was cross-compiled on Arch Linux 64-bit, with Rust 1.70.0. It runs on Windows 10 and 11

If the binaries do not run on your machine, consider compiling the code yourself and opening an Issue.

For contributors

If you want to contribute to this project, you can contact me on Discord (@elazrod) or open a PR.

What's the idea behind it?

At the very beginning, I just wanted to see what TikTok data looked like, so I asked a friend to give me his data. Then I said to myself "Hey, I could code something to calculate stats over this", and I did it.

I first chose Python for simplicity, but since I was learning Rust, I said to myself that I would do it in Rust to practice. That's why I chose an overkill language for such a simple project.

As of today, I believe that the Analyzer could be a very good way of raising awareness about how TikTok's short-form content messes up your brain and dopaminergic system. Making people aware of the problem is the first step towards healthier content consumption.

Future direction

For the moment, I'm rewriting the code to make it less ugly.

But the project will evolve in the future. I have two big ideas in mind :

• A GUI version : Download → Run → Select your file → Get the results
• A Web App version : Go to the website → Upload your file → Get the results

Basically, I intent to make the Analyzer more accessible to the average non-IT person.