A Twitch clip and VOD being archived to local MP4 and MP3 files before the 14-day VOD expiry timer runs out

Archive Twitch Clips and VODs — Before the 14-Day Timer Runs Out

June 15, 2026 7 min read

Build a Twitch VOD archive before Twitch deletes them — how VOD expiry works, why clips disappear, and the workflow for archiving Twitch VODs and deleted VODs as MP4 or MP3.

Twitch is the live-streaming home of game streamers, esports leagues, IRL creators, and a fast-growing share of the music and DJ world. It is also one of the most aggressive platforms on the internet when it comes to deleting content: VODs expire after 7 days for non-affiliated streamers, 14 days for Twitch Affiliates, and 60 days for Partners, Turbo, and Prime subscribers — then disappear permanently unless someone saves a clip or downloads the VOD in time. Clips are permanent in theory but vanish when a streamer is banned, deletes their channel, or DMCAs old content. This guide covers the manual, per-URL workflow for downloading Twitch VODs with TubePull before they expire; if you'd rather never think about the timer again, TubePull's Stream Archiving add-on now records your own channel's broadcasts in real time as you stream — see How Twitch Archiving Actually Works for how that differs from the download-after-the-fact approach below.

Quick start: Open TubePull, paste any public Twitch clip or VOD URL, pick MP4 (or MP3 for music streams), and download. Clips finish in seconds; long VODs take a few minutes. The walkthrough below explains expiry windows, what works, and the manual archival workflow. For automatic, real-time archiving of your own channel, see Stream Archiving instead.

New to Twitch's retention rules? Read Twitch Clips vs VODs: What Expires, What Doesn't, and How to Save Both for a plain-English breakdown of what disappears and when.

Why Twitch deletes everything

Twitch's VOD retention policy is deliberate: storing every hour of every stream forever would cost a fortune, and a meaningful portion of streamer content includes copyrighted music or game audio that Twitch would rather not host indefinitely. The retention windows:

Non-affiliated streamers: 7 days
Twitch Affiliates: 14 days — no grace period, no recoverable trash bin
Partner / Turbo subscriber channels: 60 days
Highlights: indefinite — VODs the streamer has manually marked as "preserve"
Clips: indefinite but conditional — live as long as the channel exists and the source has not been deleted. Bans, channel deletions, and DMCA actions remove clips immediately

The championship moment from last month's tournament, the recipe stream a friend shared, the music set you wanted to revisit — all gone unless archived. This is the use case TubePull's Twitch downloader exists for.

What kinds of Twitch content people archive

DMCA-fleeing streamers — music streamers whose old VODs were getting struck, wanting copies before deletion
Esports clips and tournament VODs — championship moments and league matches that disappear when orgs rotate channel content
IRL travel and cooking streams — long-form streams where the 14-day window is too short for asynchronous viewing
Music and DJ sets — extracted as MP3, archived in personal music libraries
Creator self-archival — streamers backing up their own VODs before Twitch deletes them, sometimes to re-upload to YouTube

If you are in category 5, Twitch offers an "Export to YouTube" button in your channel dashboard, but it is flaky and gives you no file control. Downloading a clean MP4 is more reliable — though if you're archiving your own channel on an ongoing basis, pasting a URL after every broadcast is also the slow way to do it. TubePull's Stream Archiving add-on records your channel's broadcasts in real time as they happen, so a self-archiving streamer never has to remember to grab a VOD manually again; see the real-time option below.

What works with TubePull

Any public Twitch clip URL: clips.twitch.tv/<SlugOrId> or twitch.tv/<channel>/clip/<SlugOrId>
Any public VOD URL: twitch.tv/videos/<id> (while the VOD is still available)
Mobile share URLs from the Twitch app — both clip and VOD share links resolve correctly
Highlights — manually preserved VODs work the same as normal VODs
Music/DJ streams as MP3 — pick MP3 in the output picker for audio-only output
The full source quality where the streamer broadcasts at 1080p60 or higher

What does not work

Live streams currently in progress, for a manual paste-and-download — the URL-based workflow in this guide works on finished VODs and clips, so you'd wait for the broadcast to end and Twitch to publish the VOD. This is exactly what TubePull's Stream Archiving add-on is for instead: connect your own channel once and it records the broadcast in real time as you stream, with no waiting on a published VOD. See How Twitch Archiving Actually Works for how that live-capture pipeline works.
Subscriber-only VODs and clips — gated at Twitch's edge CDN and require a paid channel subscription
VODs that have already expired — once Twitch deletes the file, no tool can recover it
Channels that have been banned — Twitch removes their VODs and clips within hours of a ban
DMCA'd clips after Twitch processes the takedown

Workflow for archiving multiple streams

Triage by deadline first: streams that aired more than 7 days ago should go first — those have less than 7 days left.
Paste each URL into TubePull and pick MP4 for visual streams or MP3 for music/talk content.
Save with the stream date in the filename — rename to YYYY-MM-DD-channel-title.mp4 so the archive is navigable a year from now.
Store on the cheapest archival tier you have — Backblaze B2, S3 Glacier, or a USB external drive. Twitch VODs are typically 1-5 GB for a multi-hour stream, so a single 4TB drive holds hundreds of streams.

Or skip the manual workflow: real-time archiving for your own channel

Everything above is a per-URL, after-the-fact workflow — you notice a VOD is about to expire, copy the URL, and download it before Twitch's timer runs out. That's the right approach for one-off saves: someone else's clip, a single VOD you forgot to grab, a highlight from a tournament you don't run. It's the wrong approach if you're trying to back up your own channel on an ongoing basis, because it depends on you remembering to do it for every single broadcast, and it still depends on Twitch actually publishing the VOD first.

TubePull's Stream Archiving add-on removes both dependencies. Connect your own Twitch channel and Google Drive once, and TubePull records the broadcast in real time as you stream — the moment your channel goes live, not after Twitch finishes processing a VOD — and saves it straight to your own Drive, up to 12 hours per broadcast. That means a crash, a channel where VOD storage isn't enabled, or a stream that ends without a VOD ever getting published doesn't leave you with nothing to archive; the copy already exists before any of that becomes a problem. It's a $3.99/month add-on on top of TubePull Pro ($4.99/month) — $8.98/month total — and it's the better fit for anyone archiving their own broadcasts every time they go live rather than triaging a backlog of other people's VODs. See How Twitch Archiving Actually Works: Recorded Live, Not After the Fact for the full mechanism, or set it up directly on the Twitch downloader page.

How TubePull compares to Twitch Leecher and 5KPlayer

A few small Twitch downloaders exist: Twitch Leecher (Windows desktop app, the long-time power-user standard), 5KPlayer (general media player with a Twitch tab), and various web tools. Practical differences:

Cross-platform, no install: TubePull runs in the browser on any OS. Twitch Leecher is Windows-only and requires a manual update every time Twitch ships a backend change.
Built on yt-dlp: the same open-source extractor archival projects worldwide use. When Twitch updates its protocol — which happens every few months — yt-dlp ships a fix quickly and TubePull picks it up without any action on your part.
Multi-platform subscription: the same Pro plan downloads from Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Mixcloud, and 5 other platforms. Dedicated Twitch tools are Twitch-only.
MP3 extraction built-in: pick the audio track only for music streams without re-encoding locally.

Legal status

Twitch clips and VODs are governed by Twitch's Terms of Service and the copyright of the streamer and any third-party music, game audio, or guest content. Downloading for personal viewing or archival — the same content you could watch live on twitch.tv — is generally permitted in many jurisdictions. Redistributing, re-uploading, or commercially exploiting copyrighted material without permission is not. You are responsible for ensuring your use complies with Twitch's ToS and your local copyright law.

More guides

How TubePull Twitch Archiving Actually Works: Recorded Live, Not After the Fact — the real-time, EventSub-to-Drive pipeline behind Stream Archiving
Never Miss a Stream: Twitch Archival Is Now on TubePull — the Stream Archiving feature launch and pricing
Twitch Clips vs VODs: What Expires, What Doesn't, and How to Save Both — the retention rules explained, tier by tier
Archive Mixcloud DJ Mixes — Workflow for Long-Form Audio — sister long-form archival guide
Download Vimeo 1080p — Creator Backup Workflow — for cross-posting streamers

Frequently asked questions

When exactly does a Twitch VOD expire?

It depends on the channel's account tier: 7 days after the broadcast ends for base (non-affiliated) broadcasters, 14 days for Twitch Affiliates, and 60 days for Partners, Turbo, and Prime subscribers. After that the file is deleted from Twitch's CDN with no grace period. Highlights (manually preserved by the streamer) and clips are exempt from the timer, but clips disappear if the streamer is banned, deletes the channel, or the source VOD is removed.

What quality does TubePull download Twitch VODs at?

Best available. yt-dlp picks the highest-resolution HLS variant the streamer broadcast (1080p60 source for partnered streamers, 720p60 or 720p for most affiliates, lower for sub-streams). If you want a smaller file for a long VOD, transcode locally with ffmpeg after download.

Can I download subscriber-only Twitch VODs?

No. Sub-only VODs require an authenticated Twitch subscription. TubePull does not log in on your behalf, so sub-only VODs return a content-unavailable error. The same applies to channel-restricted clips.

How long does a 4-hour Twitch VOD take to download?

Roughly 4-8 minutes on TubePull's worker for a 1080p60 source-quality VOD. File size lands around 3-6 GB depending on bitrate and how busy the stream is visually. Clips finish in seconds — they are usually under 60 seconds and a few MB.

Will the chat replay be included?

No. TubePull downloads the video and audio track only. Twitch chat is served from a separate JSON endpoint and is not embedded in the VOD file. If chat archival matters, a dedicated tool like Chatterino or a chat-export browser extension is the right approach alongside the VOD download.

Can I download an entire channel's clip library at once?

TubePull's web UI processes individual clips and VODs. Paste each URL one at a time (Pro: up to 5 URLs in parallel). For bulk archival of a streamer's full clip library, the yt-dlp command-line tool with the channel clips URL is more efficient.

Is archiving Twitch VODs legal?

Downloading public Twitch content for personal viewing falls in the same legally ambiguous zone as downloading from any UGC platform: technically against Twitch's Terms of Service, but a long-standing personal-use practice that no streamer or platform has ever sued an individual user over. Redistribution, re-uploading to YouTube, or monetizing somebody else's stream is a different matter and crosses clear copyright lines.

How long do Twitch VODs last?

Twitch VOD retention is tiered by account type: 7 days for base broadcasters, 14 days for Twitch Affiliates, and 60 days for Partners, Turbo, and Prime subscribers. Once that window closes the VOD is permanently deleted from Twitch's servers unless you archived it first — there is no recycle bin and no way to recover it afterward.

Do Twitch clips expire?

No — Twitch clips do not expire on a timer. A clip persists indefinitely as long as it is not deleted by the creator, the channel owner, or Twitch itself. The catch is that clips still vanish instantly if the channel is banned or deleted, or if the source content is removed by a DMCA takedown, so saving the ones that matter to you is still worth doing while they are public.

How long does Twitch keep VODs?

Twitch keeps a past broadcast for 7 days on base accounts, 14 days for Affiliates, and 60 days for Partners, Turbo, and Prime subscribers, then deletes it automatically. Highlights and clips a streamer chooses to preserve are kept beyond that window, but the full VOD of a regular stream is gone once the retention period ends.

What is Twitch's VOD retention policy?

Twitch's VOD retention policy stores past broadcasts on a sliding scale by account tier — 7 days for base broadcasters, 14 days for Affiliates, and 60 days for Partners, Turbo, and Prime subscribers — after which the recording is purged from Twitch's CDN. Manually saved highlights and user-created clips are exempt from the auto-delete timer. The policy exists to control storage costs and limit how long copyrighted music and game audio sits on Twitch's servers.

What's the difference between a Twitch clip and a VOD?

A Twitch clip is a short highlight (about 5 to 60 seconds) that any viewer can cut from a stream; it is a pre-rendered MP4 that persists indefinitely unless deleted. A Twitch VOD is the full recording of a past broadcast, served as HLS and subject to tiered retention (7, 14, or 60 days depending on account tier) before Twitch deletes it. In short: clips are short and effectively permanent, VODs are long and time-limited.

Can I recover deleted Twitch VODs?

No. Once Twitch deletes a VOD under its retention policy — or removes it because a channel was banned or a DMCA takedown was processed — the file no longer exists anywhere a third party can reach. There is no undelete, for you or the streamer. Archiving the VOD before its expiration window closes is the only way to keep a copy.

How do I archive Twitch VODs before they expire?

Copy the VOD URL (twitch.tv/videos/VOD_ID) while the broadcast is still live on Twitch, paste it into TubePull's [Twitch VOD downloader](/twitch/), and save it as an MP4 (or MP3 for audio-only). Triage by deadline — streams older than a few days are closest to deletion — and store the files on cheap archival storage. Clip downloads are free; VOD archiving is a TubePull Pro feature ($4.99/month).