Creating clips on Twitch is a great way to highlight important or interesting parts of your own or your favorite creators’ streams. But how many clips can you have on your channel? Do they ever get deleted, or do they exist forever?
How Many Twitch Clips Can You Have?
You can have an unlimited number of Twitch clips on your channel; however, Twitch can remove certain clips on your channel if the content breaks Twitch’s Terms of Service. Streamers can also delete clips you’ve made of them on their channel.
The good news is, you may keep your clips for as long as you want and delete them at any time.
Clips are great for community engagement, but also for giving people who are new to your stream an idea of what your stream is all about.
Many streamers will take clips that they have made, or clips that were made of them, and re-purpose those Twitch clips into Youtube Shorts, Tik Tok videos, Twitter posts and more.
Unlike Twitch highlights, I think that having a bunch of clips is good because it shows how active you are as a streamer. It is also good to pull content from those clips to use on other platforms.
Keep reading to learn more about how clips on Twitch work and how to create and manage your own. We’ll also cover any potential reasons why your clips may face deletion, how to avoid deleted clips, and proper etiquette when creating clips of other streamers.
What Are Twitch Clips?
Clips on Twitch are recorded snippets of streams that are anywhere from 5 to 60 seconds long. Both streamers and viewers can create Twitch clips and they are a great way to showcase your stream.
Twitch clips are great for engaging your stream. I am sure you have heard streamers yell “Clip It” or “Clip That!” Well, this is what they are referring to.
Creating your own clips is very simple and should be done anytime something noteworthy happens on your stream (like me getting my first win in Fall Guys here woop woop)!
If you need help on creating clips, check out my video below:
When you create a clip, you can publish it instantly and share it with anyone you want. The clip remains saved indefinitely, and you can view and manage your clips from the Clips page on your channel’s dashboard.
You can also view other streamers’ clips by going to their page, clicking on the video tab on their channel, and selecting the Clips option.
So now that you know what clips are and how to create your own, you might be asking: what is the purpose of clips? And, how do you decide what content is deserving of a clip?
What Is the Point Of Twitch Clips?
The point of Twitch clips is to display a short video of memorable or exciting parts of a creator’s stream. These clips can be used as a highlight or preview into your live streams and can help you gain viewers on your channel.
If somebody said, “Hey, watch this 5 hour video of this streamer. They are awesome.” Would you do it?
The answer is probably not.
But on the other hand if somebody asked you to watch a 30 second clip of a streamer they really liked you would probably be more likely to do so.
And that’s the whole point of Twitch clips. Providing short, engaging pieces of content that could hopefully help to draw people into your live streams.
But like I already mentioned earlier, in order for these clips to be effective you MUST be sharing them on other platforms. Just letting them sit there on your Twitch channel is not the most effective strategy for am aspiring Twitch streamer.
For my streams if something noteworthy happens I clip it and then upload it to Twitter and Instagram. It’s super easy and has been a good way to get some of my gaming out there for the world to see.
Now if you want to know what the difference between clips and highlights is on Twitch, check out my page here.
Or check out my video here.
Do Twitch Clips Stay Forever?
Twitch clips stay forever unless removed by Twitch for breaking Terms of Service or for playing copyrighted music. Twitch streamers can also remove clips on their own channel, disable clips entirely or ban certain users from making clips on their channel.
As you may have noticed, many streamers have recently gone through and deleted a bunch of their old clips, VODS and highlights. This is because many of them were playing copyrighted music and didn’t want to get in trouble with Twitch.
If you have been playing a bunch of copyrighted music on your stream then I recommend that you do the same. If not you may get in trouble with Twitch.
Luckily though there are ways for you to LEGALLY play music on your streams and I discuss those ways in my article here.
Why Do Twitch Clips Get Deleted?
Twitch clips get deleted because they were made by accident, don’t shine a positive light on the streamer, feature trolling, or ridicule others (harassment). Twitch may also delete clips that breach their TOS, whether that’s pornographic material, illegal content, or copyrighted music.
Although deletion is somewhat rare, there are plenty of reasons why you, another streamer, or Twitch as a platform would choose to delete a certain clip.
If you want to know how to delete a Twitch clip check out this article here.
Trolling & Harassment
Clips are intended to be used to create fun, interesting, or even inspiring highlights of streams. However, some less ingenuous viewers also use the feature to create clips of mistakes, “fails,” losses, or otherwise embarrassing, and unsightly moments of other creators’ streams.
Unfortunately, trolling is common on any online platform, and Twitch is no stranger to this kind of behavior.
Clips made to ridicule others can often border on harassment, especially when made excessively. So, if a streamer isn’t happy with a clip one of their viewers created of a moment that doesn’t reflect well on them, they may delete it or restrict the making of clips to themselves and their subscribers.
Clips Made Accidentally
Additionally, you or another streamer may choose to delete a clip if it was created by mistake. Maybe the clip didn’t quite get the right moment or drags on too long before anything interesting happens. Perhaps you accidentally hit the “clip” icon when you meant to click on something else.
There’s no reason to have a lame clip on your Twitch channel and so streamers may choose to delete these kinds of clips.
Terms of Service Violations
Twitch can also remove clips if the content in them breaks their terms of service. If the clip contains illegal content, pornographic content, or targeted harassment, for example, Twitch may remove it themselves upon review, mainly if one or more users has reported the clip.
Copyrighted Music
Finally, Twitch also removes clips that contain copyrighted music. DMCA takedowns are among the most common reasons why clips get deleted and one of the most frustrating for creators.
Twitch will simply mute the offending portion of audio in some cases, but they’ll remove the clip entirely in many others.
Thankfully, Twitch usually doesn’t penalize streamers or viewers for inadvertently creating clips that contain copyrighted audio. The platform also has a page where you can appeal any clips that have been muted.
In the future, Twitch also plans on implementing an additional appeals process for clips that have been removed. But currently, streamers, unfortunately, don’t have many options to get their deleted clips back.
As always, if you have any questions or just want to hang with me, stop by my Twitch channel here and say what’s up!
For even more streaming tips and how-to content check out my Youtube channel here. And if you want to check out my streams then stop by my Twitch channel here.
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Eric streams 3 days a week on Twitch and uploads weekly to Youtube under the moniker, StreamersPlaybook. He loves gaming, PCs, and anything else related to tech. He’s the founder of the website StreamersPlaybook and loves helping people answer their streaming, gaming, and PC questions.