How to download Twitch VODs before they're deleted

Twitch lets you download your own past broadcasts (VODs), Highlights and uploads from the Video Producer, on the web. To download a Twitch VOD:

1. Go to your Creator Dashboard on twitch.tv.
2. Open the Content menu and choose Video Producer. To see only full streams, use the drop-down above the list and pick Past Broadcasts.
3. Click the three vertical dots next to the video and choose Download.
4. Wait. Twitch notes that, depending on the video's length, the download can take a long time to start.

A few things Twitch's help center says to expect:

• One video at a time. Twitch has no bulk download. It mentions that third-party tools exist for bulk-downloading your own videos; it doesn't name or vouch for any, and neither do we.
• Muted stays muted. If Twitch's Audio Recognition muted part of the VOD, the download is muted there too.
• Editors can do it for you. The Editor role includes downloading past broadcasts, so whoever edits your videos doesn't need your password.

What format is the download? Twitch's help pages don't say. Android Authority's walkthrough (April 2025) reports that downloaded VODs are saved as MP4 files, which play and edit almost anywhere. They're big: Twitch doesn't publish a size, but at an assumed stream bitrate of 6 Mbps, an hour is about 2.7 GB, so a four-hour stream is over 10 GB. Make sure the drive has room before you start.

There's nothing to download if Twitch didn't save the stream. Saving is a setting, and it has to be on before the stream starts:

1. In your Creator Dashboard, open Settings, then Stream.
2. Under VOD Settings, turn on Store past broadcasts.

Twitch says the setting can only be turned on in the Creator Dashboard on the web, not in the mobile app. If you stream from your phone, switch it on in a browser first, or your mobile streams won't be saved. Once it's on, past broadcasts are published as VODs by default, unless the stream was in one of your Excluded Categories or you've turned off Always Publish VODs; then you review them before they go public.

Even with the setting on, Twitch warns that a stream may not save if your stream settings aren't set up properly or your network is unstable, and points to its Twitch Inspector tool to check. And Twitch Support can't recover a stream that wasn't saved, or one past its retention period: the content no longer exists on Twitch's servers.

Twitch's storage limits depend on the account and the kind of video:

Uploads are only for Affiliates and Partners, so other streamers' storage is Highlights alone.

These rules have changed before, so check Twitch's On-Demand Content help page if you're cutting it close. The 100-hour limit is one change: Twitch announced it in February 2025 and applied it from April 19, 2025, deleting content from channels over the limit, starting with the least-viewed Highlights. Past broadcasts and clips don't count toward it. The safest habit is to download what you want to keep in the first week, whatever your account.

A Highlight is a part of a past broadcast you choose to keep on Twitch, and it doesn't expire. To make one, press Highlight next to the past broadcast in the Video Producer. The Highlighter shows the stream on a timeline: mark the segments you want (several join into one reel), give it a title and press Publish Highlights.

Every Highlight and upload counts toward the 100 hours, published or not, and unpublishing doesn't free space: only deleting does. Twitch also warns that full VODs saved as Highlights count. So a Highlight is for the best of a stream, not an archive of all of it.

Highlights and uploads download the same way as VODs: the three dots next to the video, then Download, one at a time. Your Editors can download, export and delete them for you.

One more download hides in the Highlighter: its three-dot menu, in the Display section, offers downloads of the stream's clip and stream marker data. If you or your editors marked moments live (type /marker in chat, or use the Add Stream Marker quick action), and viewers clipped others, that's a list of where to look in a long VOD.

Clips are the short ones, up to 60 seconds, made by viewers or by you. To download one, open its Share menu (from the clip, the channel page or the Clips Manager) and choose Download, then landscape or portrait. You can download clips of your own channel, and clips you made of other channels.

If there's no portrait option, Twitch hasn't made the portrait version yet. Edit the clip, choose Edit Layout, change anything, save, and give it a minute to render. Twitch lists no storage limit for clips, but they can still be deleted: by the streamer at any time, and by whoever made the clip until the streamer edits, features or exports it. Download the ones you want to keep.

Making clips in the first place, the portrait layout and posting them straight to TikTok and YouTube are in how to clip on Twitch.

Twitch still offers this. Its help center (updated in September 2026) says that once your Twitch account is connected to YouTube on your Connections page, the Export option in the Video Producer uploads a video straight to your YouTube channel, without downloading it first. It's also how Twitch suggests keeping VODs past its storage period.

• Verify your YouTube account first. YouTube takes videos longer than 15 minutes only from verified accounts, so an unverified channel can't take a whole stream. Uploads can be up to 12 hours or 256 GB, whichever is less.
• Keep it off your channel if you like. In YouTube Studio, open Content, then the video's Visibility, and choose Unlisted: anyone with the link can watch it, but it isn't shown on your channel or in YouTube's search.

An unlisted YouTube copy is also the easiest way into Clyper for a long stream: paste its link, with no file to upload and no 4 GB limit to mind (the 4-hour limit still applies).

Not without the streamer. Twitch only lets a channel's owner and its Editors download its videos, and Twitch's terms of service (last modified August 12, 2026) say the license they give you doesn't permit “downloading (except page caching) of any portion of the Twitch Services” or the material on it, “except as expressly permitted on the Twitch Services.” Third-party sites that download other channels' VODs aren't a way Twitch permits, and we don't recommend any.

If you clip or edit for a streamer, there are ways in with their permission:

• Ask for the file. The streamer downloads the VOD from their Video Producer and shares it with you.
• Ask to be made an Editor. The streamer adds you in Creator Dashboard, Community, Roles Manager. Editors can download past broadcasts, which suits someone working through every stream.
• Ask for an unlisted YouTube copy, exported as above, and work from its link.
• Download the clips you made. Twitch lets you download clips you created of other channels.

Posting clips from someone else's stream is a separate question from downloading it: see is clipping legal? (it explains the issues; it isn't legal advice).

A VOD is the raw material. Hours of stream, of which a few minutes are worth posting where new viewers are: TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Here's what to do with it:

• Clip it. Finding the moments by hand means watching the stream again, then cropping each to 9:16 and captioning it. Clyper does that part, but it doesn't take Twitch links: upload the file (MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV, up to 4 GB and 4 hours long), or paste the link of a YouTube copy. At the assumed 6 Mbps, about 88 minutes of stream fit in 4 GB, so for a longer VOD, use the YouTube link or split the file first. Clyper reads the transcript, picks the best moments, cuts each on whole sentences, stacks the webcam over the game and captions every word. More in stream clips with Clyper.
• Split it. The free video splitter cuts a long VOD into 2 to 20 equal parts, or wherever you mark it. Keep the shape as it is, with no part numbers, and the parts are copied without re-encoding, so it's quick and nothing is lost, at any length.
• Trim it. To pull out one part by hand, the video trimmer cuts up to 10 minutes at a time from a video of any length, at the same size and about the same quality.
• Compress it. To send a part over Discord or email, the video compressor shrinks it to the size you pick.

All three free tools run in your browser, so the VOD isn't uploaded anywhere. For choosing which moments make good clips, see how to clip streams, and for turning the VOD into vertical clips, Twitch VODs to clips.