Practical
Archiving Your Own Video: What to Keep and in What Format
Storage is cheap and re-encoding is permanent. What to keep as a master, what to throw away, and the folder decisions that stop an archive becoming a pile.
3 min read · Published 28 August 2026
Most people's video archive is whatever happened to accumulate: exports, re-exports, versions sent to people, and one or two originals somewhere underneath. It works until you need a different version of something, at which point the only copy you can find is the compressed one you uploaded three years ago.
The rule everything else follows from
Keep the least compressed version you have. Every version you make later is limited by what you kept, permanently, and no future software recovers what was discarded.
Storage costs money once. A lost master costs the ability to ever produce a good version again.
What counts as a master
| Source | Master to keep |
|---|---|
| Phone or camera | The original file, untouched |
| Edited project | A high bitrate export, plus the project file |
| Screen recording | The original recording before any trimming |
| Something downloaded that you own | The highest quality version available |
The project file matters more than people expect. An export is a rendering of decisions; the project is the decisions. With it you can change one caption. Without it you can only re-edit an export, which costs a generation every time.
Format, if you are re-encoding anyway
Do not re-encode a master just to standardise formats. That trades quality for tidiness, which is the wrong direction.
When you genuinely must, choose deliberately.
| Choice | Good for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Keep the original | Everything, always the first answer | Storage only |
| H.264 at a high bitrate | Compatibility that will outlive the format | One generation |
| H.265 at a high bitrate | Half the size for the same quality | One generation, and less certain support |
| A lossless or intermediate codec | Ongoing editing work | Very large files |
Audio deserves a note: keep it uncompressed or lossless if you have the choice. It is a small fraction of a video file's size and it is the part that degrades most audibly with repeated encoding.
What to throw away, honestly
- Intermediate exports made while you were iterating. If the final export and the project both exist, these are just copies.
- Versions resized for a specific platform. They can be regenerated from the master in minutes.
- Duplicate downloads of the same thing at lower quality.
- Anything you have never opened and cannot identify. If the metadata says nothing and the first frame says nothing, it is unlikely to become useful later.
The one thing never to delete is the file you cannot recreate. Everything derived from a master is regenerable; the master is not.
Naming and folders
The point of a naming scheme is to answer what something is without opening it. Date first, in year month day order so it sorts correctly, then a short description, then what kind of file it is.
Something like 2026-08-28-workshop-talk-MASTER is enough. Consistency matters more than the exact shape, and a scheme you actually follow beats a better one you abandon after a month.
Keep masters and derivatives in separate folders. Mixing them is how a master gets deleted during a tidy-up, and it is the one mistake with no remedy.
Backups, briefly
- One copy is not a backup. A drive that fails takes everything with it, and drives fail without warning.
- Two copies on the same machine are one copy. Theft, fire and a failing controller take both.
- Keep one copy somewhere else, whether that is a second drive stored elsewhere or cloud storage.
- Check occasionally that a backup actually restores. An untested backup is a belief rather than a backup.
None of this is specific to video. Video just makes it urgent, because the files are large enough that people economise, and the originals are the exact thing they economise on.
Common questions
Should I convert my archive to one format?
No. Re-encoding a master to standardise formats trades real quality for tidiness. Keep originals as they are and convert only when producing a version for a specific purpose.
Is H.265 a good archive format?
It is efficient and gives roughly half the size for the same quality, but support is less universal than H.264 and an archive is a long term bet. If the original exists, keeping it beats both.
What should I keep from an edited project?
A high bitrate export and the project file. The export is a rendering of your decisions; the project is the decisions themselves, and only one of those lets you change a caption without a fresh generation of loss.
How many backups do I need?
At least one copy in a different place. Two copies on one machine are one copy in practice, since theft, fire or a failing controller takes both.