Twitch VOD Retention: How Long Do Past Broadcasts Last?

Twitch does not keep past broadcasts forever. Each one has an expiry date, and when it passes, the video is deleted from the platform permanently. This surprises a lot of streamers the first time it happens.

The tiered structure

Retention depends on your account status. The structure has been consistent for years even as the exact durations have shifted:

• Regular accounts get the shortest window.
• Affiliates typically get the same or slightly longer.
• Partners, plus anyone with Twitch Turbo or Prime, get the longest window.

The longest tier has commonly been cited at 60 days. The shorter tier is where sources disagree — you will find 7 days and 14 days quoted with equal confidence across guides published within months of each other, which is a good sign that it has changed at least once and that some of those articles are stale.

So check it yourself rather than trusting any number in a blog post, including this one. Two reliable ways:

1. Open Creator Dashboard → Content → Video Producer. Each past broadcast shows its own expiry.
2. Read Twitch’s own Help documentation on video on demand, which is the only source that updates when the policy does.

The point that matters is structural, not numeric: the window is measured in days or weeks, not years, and the clock starts when the stream ends.

Highlights and uploads don’t expire

This is the part worth internalising. The expiry applies to past broadcasts. Two other video types on your channel behave differently:

• Highlights — sections you cut out of a past broadcast and save as their own video. These persist.
• Uploads — video files you upload directly to your channel. These persist.

So the durable pattern is: stream, then before the clock runs out, turn anything worth keeping into a highlight. The past broadcast disappears on schedule; the highlight stays.

There are limits on total highlight and upload storage per channel, so this isn’t infinite, but it converts a hard deadline into a manageable one.

Clips are separate again

Clips have their own lifecycle and generally outlive the broadcast they came from. They are not a reliable archive either, though — if the parent video is removed, some clips break with it, and a clip is only ever a short excerpt.

Treat clips as shareable moments, not as your backup.

What to actually do about it

If you stream:

• Record locally as well. OBS and similar software can write a local file while you stream. This is the only copy nobody else controls, and it’s usually higher quality than the Twitch rendition.
• Turn on automatic archiving so past broadcasts are created at all — see enabling VODs and highlights. If this is off, there is no VOD to expire in the first place.
• Highlight anything you might want later, promptly. “I’ll do it next week” is how VODs get lost.
• Download the full broadcast if you plan to edit it elsewhere. Here’s how.

If you’re a viewer:

• Don’t assume a VOD will be there tomorrow. If a broadcast matters to you, act on it while it exists.
• Respect the fact that expiry is sometimes deliberate. Some streamers let VODs lapse on purpose, and some disable archiving entirely — that’s a choice about their own work, and it’s worth honouring rather than routing around.

Why Twitch does this

Storage and bandwidth for millions of hours of video is expensive, and the vast majority of past broadcasts are watched very little after the first few days. Tiering retention by account status is a straightforward way to spend that budget on the channels most likely to benefit, and to make Turbo and Prime slightly more attractive.

Knowing that, the sensible assumption is that these durations will keep changing. Build a habit that doesn’t depend on them: local recording plus prompt highlights, and treat anything still sitting in Past Broadcasts as temporary.