Archive vs delete EN

One puts a recording out of the way; the other is permanent.

Archiving moves a recording out of your Library so it's out of the way, and you can bring it back at any time. Deleting removes it permanently, and Rekorder can't recover it.

The difference at a glance

	Archive	Delete
Can you undo it?	Yes, with Unarchive	No
Where does the recording go?	The Archive view in your Library	Nowhere. It's removed
Does it free storage?	No	Yes
Captions, comments and views	Kept	Removed

Archive a recording

Archive is for recordings you don't need day to day but might want later.

Open the menu on the recording's card in your Library, or the menu on the video page.
Select Archive.

The recording disappears from your Library and appears in Archive instead. Archived recordings are marked with an archive badge. You can't share an archived recording from its card until you unarchive it.

To archive several recordings at once, select them and choose Archive from the bar that appears. See Select several recordings and act on them at once.

Get an archived recording back

Open Archive in your Library.
Open the menu on the recording and select Unarchive.

The recording returns to your Library. You can also select several archived recordings and unarchive them together.

Archiving doesn't free space

An archived recording still counts toward your free minutes and storage. It also doesn't protect the recording if a grace period runs out. Only deleting frees space. See The free allowance: 60 minutes and 1 GB, explained and The 30-day grace period and the deletion order.

Delete a recording

Deleting is permanent. Rekorder asks you to confirm first, and the message tells you it can't be undone.

When you delete a recording:

The video is removed, along with its captions, summary and chapters.
Comments, views and sharing settings are removed too, so any link you shared stops working.
The space it used is freed.
There's no trash or recycle bin to restore it from.
Support can't restore it either. It's deleted from all backups too.

If you saved a copy to Google Drive, that copy stays in Drive. Deleting the recording in Rekorder doesn't remove it.

You can delete a recording from its card menu, from the video page, or from the Archive view. You don't need to unarchive it first. You can delete several at once with the selection bar.

Who can archive or delete

Only the person who owns a recording can archive, unarchive or delete it. Teammates in a workspace can't do either to your recordings.

If a recording was shared with you, the option is Remove from your Shared with me list. That only removes it from your list. It doesn't delete it for the owner.

Which should you choose?

Choose Archive if you're unsure, or you just want a tidier Library.
Choose Delete if you're sure you're done with it, or you need the space back.
If you might need the file later but want the space, download it first, then delete it. See Download your own recording.