Why an empty recording disappeared from your library EN

If you started a recording that never sent any video to Rekorder's servers, its entry disappears on its own within minutes. This is automatic cleanup, not a bug, and there's nothing to recover.

Why this happens

Rekorder uploads your recording in small chunks while you're recording, not all at once at the end - see Your recording uploads while you are still recording. The moment you start recording, Rekorder creates a placeholder entry for it, but that entry only becomes a real, visible recording once the first chunk of video actually reaches Rekorder's servers.

If no chunk ever arrives, the placeholder never turns into a real recording. It doesn't appear in your library, and about five minutes after it was created, Rekorder removes it for good.

What this looks like

• The recording never shows up in your library list, even briefly.
• If you had a direct link to it - for example, the extra tab Rekorder opens when you start recording - it may have shown a processing screen for a few minutes before that link stopped working.
• There's nothing to restore. Since no video ever reached Rekorder, there's no file to recover and no earlier version to fall back to.

Common causes

• You closed the recorder tab, navigated away, or stopped the recording within the first second or two - before the first chunk of video had a chance to save and upload. See My recording stopped by itself.
• Chrome crashed, or your computer went to sleep, in that same first moment. See If Chrome crashes or your laptop sleeps mid-recording.
• A network problem meant the very first chunk never reached Rekorder's servers.

Troubleshooting

• If your recording ran for more than a few seconds and you're sure some footage was captured, this probably isn't what happened - see The recording never appeared in my library for the wider checklist.
• If the recording did start uploading but never finished, that's a different situation with a longer window before anything is removed - see An upload that seems stuck.

Related articles

• The recording never appeared in my library
• Your recording uploads while you are still recording
• If Chrome crashes or your laptop sleeps mid-recording
• An upload that seems stuck
• How long recordings are kept
• Can I recover a deleted recording?