Open the TikTok app and finish the post from your Inbox notification. Tools that use the video.upload scope cannot publish for you: that scope only delivers the file to your account and TikTok then asks you to complete it. Publishing directly requires a separate permission plus a Content Posting audit.
The upload scope hands the file to your account and stops there. TikTok notifies you, and you tap to finish the post — caption, privacy, everything. Nothing is published without you.
Direct posting is a separate permission, and it has a second gate on top: an app can hold the permission and still be restricted until it passes a Content Posting audit. So a tool asking you to finish posts by hand is not necessarily missing a feature; it may be on the only path available to it.
This one cost us a day, so it is worth stating plainly. After the upload, the API is polled for a terminal status. If the poller gives up while the status still says the file is being processed, the tool records a failure — but the file was accepted and the draft does arrive.
Our own poller gave up after 30 seconds and marked posts failed. The drafts were in the Inbox the whole time. If you see failures on TikTok but drafts keep appearing, this is the likely cause, and it is on the tool's side, not yours.
| Measured | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Our poll window before the fix | 30 s (15 polls × 2 s) | our own worker, before the 20.08.2026 fix |
| Posts recorded as failed while drafts arrived | 2 | our scheduled_posts on 20.08.2026 |
If the same tool puts its logo on your YouTube or Instagram exports but not on TikTok, that is deliberate. TikTok's Content Sharing Guidelines state that apps "should not superimpose or otherwise include any brand name, logo, watermark, other promotional branding, link or promotional text, on or in any content which is shared to TikTok".
That wording covers every posting mechanism, including the upload-to-Inbox path, and it has no exception for an app posting to its own account. So a clean file on TikTok and a branded one elsewhere is the rule being followed, not an inconsistency.
Only if it holds the direct-posting permission and has passed the Content Posting audit, and even then TikTok requires you to choose the privacy level yourself rather than letting the app default it.
That is a different failure. Check whether the tool's connection to TikTok is still valid — a revoked or expired token fails the upload outright, and the tool should be asking you to reconnect rather than retrying silently.
TikTok manages the Inbox, not us, so we cannot promise a retention period. Treat it as something to finish the same day rather than a queue.
5 free videos every month, no card required.