To abide by American law, TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, must sell the app to someone who will operate it within the US.

In case you've been living under a rock, TikTok is a short-form video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Launching in 2016, it quickly rose to popularity, eventually becoming one of the most-downloaded apps in the U.S. by 2018.

It’s looking increasingly likely that any deal to transfer control of TikTok to new owners will mean US users have to download a new TikTok. And that could mean an almost entirely different experience on the app.

A new TikTok app may be coming for users in the U.S. and that could mean an almost entirely different user experience.

TikTok is developing a new app for its more than 170 million U.S. users alongside a potential sale, according to a report from The Information. The news follows comments President Donald Trump made on Friday that he “pretty much” has a deal for a U.S. company to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operations, although he did not disclose the potential buyer.

Popular video-sharing app TikTok is still available to US users only because President Trump issued an executive order in early 2025 to postpone the ban the Chinese app is facing. Trump has extended the delay two more times since then, with the latest extension coming just a few weeks ago.

TikTok's owner, ByteDance, has plans to move Americans to a US-specific version of CapCut as it looks to meet requirements for a divest-or-ban law.

TikTok is facing a fresh European Union privacy investigation into user data transferred to China. The Irish Data Protection Commission opened the inquiry as a follow up to a previous investigation that ended earlier this year with a 530 million euro ($620 million) fine.

According to new reporting from The Information, TikTok is building a new app ahead of a sale to non-Chinese investors. American users will need to download the new app, which will replace the existing TikTok app in the United States.

TikTok researchers and users say there is yet another type of deception to look out for on the hit video app: Deepfake videos that copy the exact words of a real creator but in a different voice.