Clips vs past broadcasts
Clips are short highlights (usually up to a minute) that anyone can create from a stream. They're small and quick to download, which makes them perfect for sharing a great play with friends or keeping a highlight reel of your own channel.
Past broadcasts (VODs) are full recordings of a stream. They can be hours long and several gigabytes, so a download may take a while — the progress bar shows how far along it is. Twitch deletes most VODs after a limited number of days, so streamers often save their own broadcasts before they expire.
What can't be downloaded
- Live streams while they're still live — wait for the VOD.
- Subscriber-only VODs, which require a paid subscription and a login.
- Deleted or expired broadcasts.
Picking a quality for long VODs
A four-hour stream in 1080p60 can be 6–10 GB. Unless you need it for editing, 720p is a good balance of quality and size. Make sure your device has enough free space before starting a long download.
For streamers
Zovan is a simple way to back up your own clips and broadcasts for editing into YouTube videos or TikToks. If you're saving other streamers' clips, keep their channel name visible and credit them when you share — clips are a big part of how smaller streamers get discovered.
Downloading on a computer
On Windows, Mac or Linux the steps are the same: open the clip or past broadcast in your browser, copy the address from the address bar, paste it into Zovan and press Fetch. Files go to your Downloads folder — press Ctrl+J (Windows/Linux) or ⌘+Shift+J (Mac) in Chrome or Edge to see them. Any modern player opens the MP4; if one doesn't, the free VLC player plays everything.
Save your own broadcasts before they expire
Twitch only keeps past broadcasts for a limited time — around a week for most channels, longer for Partners and some subscribers — after which they're deleted automatically. If you stream, it's worth downloading the broadcasts you want to keep, or turning the best parts into Highlights in your Twitch dashboard, which don't expire. Highlights and uploads have their own twitch.tv/videos/… links and download the same way.