Twitch has put out an announcement that they will limit streamers to 100 hours of highlights and uploads, deleting videos past that on April 19, 2025.
We've received concerned messages, so I wanted to clarify what I could.
First, as always, we are open to working with any MCYT creators who want assistance in archiving or recovering their content. We have done so in the past!
Second, to address a couple of specific people who have generated concern:
Cellbit: While he archives his streams to Twitch, he archives them as past broadcasts, not highlights or uploads. His past broadcasts will not be deleted as part of this change. I can additionally confirm that we have 720p60 backups of Cellbit's QSMP VODs, but these are just a backup (not uploaded and added to the spreadsheets) because he has an anti-reupload policy:
Não reupe conteúdo da minha stream sem permissão
[Tr. Don't reupload content from my streams without permission.]
Philza: Unfortunately, Philza has a lot of Twitch videos that will be deleted. The good news is that Mercy (the YouTube VOD channel manager) has all of his public Twitch videos saved. (They have also uploaded to the VOD channel the videos Philza is comfortable with.) The primary loss concern is Philza's private videos. He said on stream today that he is working on saving those himself, but that he has highlights going all the way back to 2009, so that's a daunting project. My heart goes out to him because of what can only be an overwhelming and emotional project to take on.
That's all of the relevant information I'm aware of, but please feel free to reach out if there's anything further we can assist with.
Whether you want to download VODs and/or clips for your own records or because you’d like to share them online, knowing how to archive things is handy, especially when so many streams become lost media once they’re deleted off Twitch and/or YouTube.
Here are a few programs that I use for Royal Archivist!
—
Of all the programs on this list, my personal favorites / the ones I most strongly recommend are Cobalt and Twitch Downloader! (When all else fails, OBS is also a good backup).
Cobalt
Cobalt has gained a lot of popularity the past few months, and for good reason! It's a very reliable, extremely user-friendly website that lets you save videos in MP4 formats, convert them into MP3 formats, or video-only without sound.
Cobalt is currently compatible with: BlueSky, Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Loom, OK, Pinterest, Reddit, RuTube, SnapChat, SoundCloud, Streamable, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitch, Twitter, Vimeo, VK, Xiohongshu, and YouTube.
Twitch’s built-in download feature
If you’re downloading your own clip, this is the easiest method to use
First, navigate to your clips page.
To do this, click on your Twitch icon and go to “Creator Dashboard.” There will be a row of icons on your left - click the fifth button from the top (the one above the settings icon) and click on the link that says “Clips.”
At the top of the page, click on “Clips I’ve Created” and you should see a list of every clip you’ve ever made (regardless of whether or not you’ve published them, the clips are there!)
If you're having trouble, you can also type: https://dashboard.twitch.tv/u/ YOUR USERNAME HERE /clips/created
Click on the share button, and the list shown in the photo below will pop up.
After you click on the “Download” button (for landscape or portrait), a new tab will open up with the clip (which will autoplay, so heads up if you have your volume turned up high!)
Right click on the video and click “Save Video As”
That’s all there is to it! Please keep in mind that Twitch’s download function only works for clips you’ve made! You cannot use it to download VODs, or other people’s clips.
Twitch Downloader
Twitch Downloader is by far the BEST Twitch download program I have ever used. I’ve used several different ones, some which have broken because of Twitch’s updates, others which have fallen into disrepair because their creator no longer updates the program, but this one has been working consistently for me for a little over a year now. I’ve kept it very close to my chest because I’m terrified it’ll stop working one day, but it’s better to share resources than horde them out of fear.
Pros:
HD quality for all downloads! Whatever quality the stream was, that’s the quality the download will be (unless you adjust anything in the settings).
The best feature of this program is you can adjust how much you want to clip! Only want a 30 second clip from a 6 hour VOD? You can specify the section you want to download so long as you know the timestamps where you want the clip to start and where you want it to end.
You can download entire VODs.
When saving the file, it will automatically enter the original name of the stream and the stream date. (You can change this, but it’s very handy when you’re downloading an entire VOD and not a section of one).
It will automatically prompt you to update it when a new version has been released. (You do have the option to opt out of this, if you want).
There are a lot of other features available, however, I’ve never tried any of them so I can’t say how well they work. The Github page has a lot of examples and a Q&A section though, so check that out if you’re curious!
On the rare occasion that the program encounters issues, it's easy to use a past version, and the creators are quick to release new updates that resolve any problems. As of today (February 21, 2025) the latest version is currently 1.55.2, which updated last week.
Cons:
Sometimes when you click “Get Info” it won’t immediately load the VOD. This is pretty easy to solve by just restarting the program, so it’s not a huge issue imo.
You can’t preview clips before you download them, so you need to know the exact timestamps you want.
You can’t download VODs that are privated or no longer on Twitch.
How to use:
Download Twitch Downloader from Github and install the version that works for your computer. (In this case, I would download the GUI Windows-x64.zip version. Make sure you’re downloading the GUI version if you want a user-friendly version of this program).
Enter the URL of the VOD you’d like to download.
You can adjust the quality of the video and the length. If nothing is specified in the “Crop Video” section, it will download the entire VOD.
Once you’re ready, click the “Download” button and you’re good to go!
Open Video Downloader
If you’ve ever wanted to download any kind of video, I’m sure you’ve heard of Youtube-dl. There are different versions of this program, but some of them are a bit finicky and if things stop working, it can be difficult and frustrating trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it — which is why I recommend this program.
Open Video Downloader, aka youtube-dl-gui, is one of the best video downloaders I’ve ever used. It’s basically Youtube-dl with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that makes the program very easy for anyone to use.
Pros:
No coding knowledge required! VERY user-friendly.
The creator fixes user issues very quickly! Whenever the program experiences a problem, a new update is released within 24 hours.
It can download videos from pretty much all major social media platforms, including Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Twitch clips, Instagram, and more.
Cons:
You can’t adjust the length of what you want to download. If you want to download a 2 minute section from a 5 hour Youtube VOD, you’ll have to download the entire video.
On rare occasions, I’ve had issues where it cannot download an unlisted Youtube video. There are sometimes ways to get around this, but it’s a pain and usually not worth the effort.
How to use it:
Download the latest version of the program from GitHub. Scroll all the way down to “Assets” and select the version that’s right for your computer. (For example, I use Windows, so I would download the .exe file).
Once you’ve installed it, you can start downloading things! For this example, let’s say I want to download Quackity’s “Welcome to the QSMP” video. All I need to do is copy the link and paste it into the white box at the top of the program.
Once that’s done, you should see the video pop up in your download queue. You can queue multiple videos to download at once (you can also download entire playlists too). When you’re ready, click the green download button on the bottom right (as shown in the picture below) or if you only want to download one specific video from your queue, click the download button (circled in red) next to the video.
You can adjust the quality of the video you want to download, and in theory you can choose whether to download just the audio or just the video of a video, but personally that’s never worked for me. That might just be a me issue though.
If you’d like to change where your videos are saved to, click the Folder button (circled in yellow) and choose a download destination. If nothing is chosen, it will default to your Downloads folder.
There are ways you can customize this program, but like I said earlier, this program is very very easy to use and does not require any tinkering whatsoever. You open it, download what you want, then close it. Nice and simple!
Other Recommendations
OBS is a good backup when all else fails! I have to use OBS pretty frequently for YouTube VODs, since there aren't a lot of tools that let you clip parts of a YouTube video (and I'd rather not download an entire 7 hour long VOD for a 30 second clip). There are already a lot of good tutorials out there explaining how to use OBS, so I recommend poking around and seeing what works best for you. If you're new to video downloading / archiving things, I'd still recommend starting with some of the tools I mentioned above first.
I’d recommend making a folder on your computer for clips. I find it very helpful to name all my files with this method: [Stream date] Streamer name - Something that helps me remember what this clip is about / something that will help me find it later, or a quote.
Example: [2-6-24] Mike - I hate capitalism
If you’ve got a significant amount of clips on your computer, I’d recommend backing them up and/or saving them to an external harddrive!
That’s about it! I apologize if I’ve missed any steps, but hopefully everything is more or less easy enough for folks to understand! I’m someone who does not like downloading random programs onto my computer and I’m very paranoid about cyber security, but I’ve used these programs for over a year now, and they’re very reliable and trustworthy. 10/10, I recommend both of them.
Lastly: if anyone has a recommendation for good Youtube clip downloaders, please let me know! I haven’t found any good programs that let me specify how much of a Youtube video I’d like to download, and I am suffering. Help your friendly neighborhood Archivist so I can share more clips from the early days of QSMP.
okay, so it was basically about tubbo and tommy getting into an argument where tommy stormed out of the house and was then just. missing. gone. i think it was tubbo-centric and focused on him and ranboo, who i think he just met, trying to find tommy, with ranboo being told about tommy as he bonds with tubbo. at some point they visit connor who has security cameras but come up empty handed. it turns out that tommy was kidnapped by bbh to be sacrificed to the egg, which is in an abandoned mineshaft. it's small town horror vibes, kinda in a similar vein to promised land by cosmonaughtt?
please link it if you know what im talking about!!
the inexplicable harness originated as a BACKPACK!!! this was made by the same person who made wilburs pogtopia skin so im pretty confident in saying that THIS is where it came from
it’s the way it happens while foolish is alt-tabbed so we don’t even get to see bad do it. it’s the environmental storytelling through bad’s joining and leaving messages. it’s the solid three seconds where foolish doesn’t realize and the horrified GASP followed by dead silence when he does. this clip is literally a work of art
A lot of folks ask me for help finding old QSMP VODs that are no longer on Twitch and/or YouTube, so I want to let people know about this very useful resource created by the MCYT Archivist community!
The QSMP Archive Project is dedicated to locating, collecting and archiving QSMP VODs to make them easily accessible to the community. Hundreds of VODs from every member are included in this spreadsheet, which is meticulously organized by month / day / streamer.
Due to the sheer amount of VODs that exist, MCYT-Archives is always looking for help fleshing out this and other server archives for Squidcraft, Arkanis, DSMP, and more.
Check out the MCYT Archive Project Discord or @mcyt-archives for more info if you want to help!
this is a compact guide to most lore-relevant badlands streams. this does not include egg lore streams that are not badlands member centric (i.e, fundy’s, some of tommy’s).
for a complete egg lore masterlist, check out @eggpires’ amazing post here!! they also have a lsandburg masterpost, if you dont want my condensed version
☆: most important streams (in my opinion), to condense the list even more if you’re short on time
updated 11/27/2021
Skeppy’s first DSMP stream // Skeppy steals Tommy’s Disc: while initially i wanted no pre-badlands lore, i thought i would include some early c!skeppy lore since most people are unaware of it.
☆ Founding of the Badlands (Ant POV/ Sam POV): red festival, around 2:04:20 in sam’s vod is when sam/ant/bad turn against schlatt and 2:25:50 is when they form the badlands. in ant’s pov, around 1:16:00 bad and ant defend the van from destruction, and techno also asks them about their stance.
The Second Pet War: sam’s pov, starts around 3-ish hours in, the badlands have their first fight as a nation against punz and sapnap and win
Pandas Stream: bbh’s pov, first stream the badlands do together, mostly a chill stream but around 30 minutes in, bad reveals his plans for chaos. i would recommend this stream to get a feel for the (early days) badlands dynamic
War Stream: bbh’s pov, badlands switch sides throughout the war and towards the end dream recognizes the badlands as an independent nation
note: jschlatt’s funeral stream is here or here, where they discuss resurrecting him with quackity but idk how relevant that will be towards the plot
First and Second(?) Prison Stream: the first two streams where sam starts introducing the prison, mostly grinding but check comments for good timestamps (a lot of the prison streams are just building, pls link me if there are more lore heavy ones im missing)
☆ First Egg Arc Stream: bbh’s pov, bad introduces the blood vines at the start and checks back on them in between building the prison (dream also drops some lore about the prison and his deal with jschlatt)
I typed in random coords to teleport to and i found this platform in the middle of nowhere. anyone have any idea who may have built this and what it was for? im totally blanking on anything
coords: 1701 130 -371
edit: okay im seeing that this is connected to some wooden road network im going to follow it
In my restless dreams,
I see that ravine.
Pogtopia.
You promised me you'd take me
there again someday.
But you never did.
Well, I'm alone there now...
In our 'special place'...
Waiting for you...
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
dailybridgerton
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
snowghoul
