01
What is worth keeping, and for how long?
The original recording, indefinitely, because it is the only thing that cannot be recreated. Exports and clips can always be produced again from it. That single rule decides most storage questions: originals are irreplaceable, everything downstream is not.
02
What to keep and for how long
Originals are the only irreplaceable thing on the list, and that single rule settles almost every storage question.
| Item | Replaceable? | Keep |
|---|---|---|
| Original camera or session file | No | Indefinitely, two copies |
| Edited long version | Yes, from the original | While it is published |
| Produced clips | Yes, easily | Delete first when space is tight |
| Music licences and permissions | No | Longer than the clips |
| Exported intermediates | Yes | Delete immediately |
03
A naming habit that makes files findable
Start every file name with the date in year-month-day order, then a short description, then the people involved: 2026-03-14_pricing-q-and-a_maya-jon. Sorted by name, the folder becomes a timeline, and a search for a guest's name finds every recording they appeared in.
Avoid names like final, final2 and new. They describe your editing history, which stops mattering the day the project is finished, instead of the content, which is what you will search for years later. Put the version in a subfolder if you must keep more than one.
04
Two copies in two places
A single copy is not an archive; it is a file waiting for a failed drive. Keep originals in at least two places that cannot fail together: an external drive at home and a cloud folder, or two drives kept in different buildings. Check once a year that both still open.
Hard drives left unplugged for years can fail silently, and cloud accounts get closed when a card expires. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar to plug in the drives, confirm the files open, and make sure the payment details on any storage service are still valid.
Test a restore now and then, not just a backup. Pick a random recording from a year ago, copy it back from each location, and play it through. A backup nobody has ever restored from is only a hope.
05
Mining the back catalogue
Old recordings become useful again when the topic returns to the news, when a guest becomes better known, or when your audience has grown enough that most followers never saw the original. A short note in each folder listing the two or three best moments makes these opportunities quick to act on.
An anniversary is another reliable trigger. A clip from exactly one year ago, framed as a look back at what you predicted or how something turned out, gives old footage a new reason to exist without pretending it is new.
06
Your back catalogue is content
- Keep originals, not exports. An export can be remade. A lost original cannot.
- Name files by date and subject. Clever folder structures fail. A sortable date at the front does not.
- Keep a second copy somewhere else. One copy is not a backup, whatever the drive costs.
Pick something from a year ago and run it.
Questions people ask
- How much storage do I need?
- It depends on how you record. Working out the size of a typical hour, then multiplying by how many hours you produce a year, gives a realistic figure quickly.
- Should I keep the clips too?
- They are the easiest thing to remake, so they are the first thing to delete if space is tight.
- Is cloud storage enough?
- As one of two copies, yes. As the only copy it carries the same single point of failure as a drive.
- What is worth revisiting?
- Recordings older than a year, since most audiences have grown since then and almost nobody saw the original.
- Do links to old videos still work?
- A supported link works as long as the video is still online, which is another reason to keep your own copy of the file.