TikTok has established itself as the quintessential entertainment app, offering everything from funny skits and makeup tutorials to social commentary and news. However, the platform could disappear from US app stores by January 19 unless the Supreme Court intervenes to block a federal law forcing TikTok to cut ties with its China-based parent company or face a nationwide one Ban. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, recently asked the court to pause the law so he can craft a “political solution” to the problem in his second term. If the justices – who heard oral arguments on the law on Friday – grant his request, a possible ban on TikTok will be delayed even further. The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision within days. TikTok has more than 170 million US users. According to the Pew Research Center, this includes most teenagers and a third of adults. If you’re an avid user or a creator who relies on the platform to generate income, here’s what you need to know to prepare: What’s happening on January 19th? Under the law, web hosting companies are also prohibited from hosting TikTok. Users will still have access to TikTok if it has already been downloaded to their phones. However, the app will disappear from Apple and Google’s app stores, preventing new users from downloading it. This would also mean that TikTok would not be able to push updates, security patches, and bug fixes to users, all of which will reduce the quality of the app and likely lead to security issues. At some point the app will no longer be functional. Are there any workarounds for accessing TikTok? Yes, but it requires some technical understanding and it’s not clear what will work and what won’t. The most common workaround cited is a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, which allows users to mask their location. A VPN encrypts your traffic data and then forwards it through private tunnels to secure servers around the world, preventing anyone else from reading it. Lauren Hendry Parsons, director of communications and advocacy at ExpressVPN, claims that people could access their TikTok accounts by using a VPN and making some other changes to their phone’s settings that would allow them to go to the app store a nearby country. If large swaths of users do this, it’s possible that tech companies like Apple or Google could recognize this as a legal liability and find other ways to take action against the app. But they could also avoid that route as they seek to forge friendlier relations with Trump, who now wants to “save TikTok” and could potentially order his Justice Department to stop enforcing the law altogether. US TikTok users with Android devices may also be able to continue updating the platform through third-party app stores, a method called sideloading. But bypassing the security protocols of popular app stores could also make users more vulnerable to malware, said Gus Hurwitz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania with expertise in telecommunications and technology. Would I still have access to my favorite videos? TikTok allows you to save the videos you post or photos or content from your favorite influencers. Any posts you choose to save will be downloaded and saved to your phone. Many TikTok creators allow users to download their posts, but you may not be able to save everything you want as some restrict their content. Users also cannot download content from private accounts or those registered to anyone under 16 years of age. If you are interested, the platform allows you to request a copy of your TikTok data, which includes things like your comment and video viewing history. The company states that this type of file may take a few days to prepare. What apps will people turn to next? Established social media platforms such as Meta’s Instagram, Snapchat and Google’s YouTube are set to benefit from the acquisition of one of their biggest competitors pushed out of the US market. The rise of the short video platform led to many others offering TikTok-like feeds on their own platforms, such as Instagram’s Reels and YouTube’s Shorts. And if TikTok disappears, it’s likely that the app’s developers would switch more easily to Reels and Shorts because they already have large audiences and a user base that overlaps with TikTok, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at market research firm Emarketer.But some Experts say the youngest users are unlikely to migrate to a service popularized by their Millennial parents. And while Meta’s algorithm is addictive, it’s still not TikTok. YouTube is still best known for its longer format videos. For TikTokers looking to escape the crowded places, there are lesser-known apps like Triller, popular for music videos, and Zigazoo, designed with children in mind. There’s also Twitch, Amazon’s live streaming platform._______AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this story.