Does Opus Clip store your videos?
Last checked 18 October 2026 against Opus Clip's privacy policy, terms of service and help centre. Their documents are theirs to change; if something below is out of date, tell support@tondi.app and it gets fixed.
Yes. Opus Clip is a cloud service, so every video you give it is uploaded to their servers and kept there while it is processed and for a set time afterwards: 3 days on the Free plan, 30 days on Starter and Pro, or indefinitely if a Pro user saves the project to cloud storage. The footage is processed on Google Cloud servers in the United States, and their privacy policy lists "videos, images, transcripts" among the data they collect to "provide editing & sharing features, improve product and services".
That is not a scandal — it is how every cloud clipper works, and Opus is more forthcoming about it than most. But it matters if the footage isn't yours to hand over: a client's unreleased episode, an interview under embargo, anything covered by an NDA. This page sets out what their own documents say, so you can decide.
How long does Opus Clip keep an uploaded video?
| Plan | Projects and exports kept for |
|---|---|
| Free | 3 days after creation, then "automatically removed" and "can no longer be recovered" |
| Trial | 7 days |
| Starter, Pro | 30 days |
| Pro, with cloud storage on | Indefinitely (100 GB included), until you delete it |
Those figures are from their help-centre article on saving projects. Note that expiry is described from the user's side — the project disappears from your account. The privacy policy separately says personal data is retained "for as long as necessary", and the terms say that after account deletion it "may not be possible to completely delete" submissions from their records. Neither document gives a date by which the underlying file is gone from their servers.
What rights does uploading give Opus Clip over the footage?
Their terms distinguish two kinds of upload. A Personal User Submission — a video only you can see, which is the normal case — grants them a licence "for the sole purpose of making that Personal User Submission accessible to you and providing the Services necessary to do so". That is the narrow licence you would expect, and it does not let them use your footage in marketing.
A Public User Submission — anything shared publicly on their service — is different: it grants a "royalty-free, perpetual, sublicensable, irrevocable, and worldwide" licence including use "for OpusClip's marketing and promotional purposes". Keep client footage out of anything marked public.
Is the footage used to train their AI?
The terms don't say either way. The privacy policy says you are "free to opt out of any use of your personal data for our AI research and model-development activities", and gives EU users an email address for it — which implies such use exists by default. There is no toggle in the product; the opt-out is by email.
Who else sees it?
The privacy policy names Google Cloud (hosting, United States) and Stripe (payments), and refers to a trust portal for the full sub-processor list. It does not name the AI providers, if any, that process the video and transcript. For a client asking "where does my episode go", the honest answer with Opus is "Google's servers in the US, plus whoever is on the sub-processor list".
Answering a client who asks where their footage goes
If you use a cloud clipper on someone else's material, sooner or later somebody asks. Based on Opus Clip's own documents, a truthful answer looks roughly like this — and it is worth reading it as a client would before deciding whether you want to be the one saying it:
The episode is uploaded to OpusClip, a US company, and processed on Google Cloud servers in the United States. It stays in my account for 30 days on our plan and is then removed from view. Their terms say deletion from the account does not guarantee removal from their records, and no document gives a date by which the underlying file is gone. Their privacy policy treats videos and transcripts as content they collect, and AI research use is opt-out by email rather than off by default.
Every sentence there is defensible and most clients will be entirely fine with it. The point is that it is a conversation, and some contracts answer it for you before you get to have it.
What to check in your own paperwork
This is not legal advice and your agreements are yours to read. These are simply the clauses that tend to decide the question, so they are the ones worth looking at first:
- Sub-processor consent. Some contracts require written approval before a new company touches the material. Uploading makes OpusClip and Google Cloud sub-processors.
- Data residency. If the footage has to stay in the UK, the EU or Canada, processing on US servers is the whole answer and nothing else matters.
- Retention limits. A contract that caps how long a third party may hold material sits awkwardly with terms that decline to state when a file is actually deleted.
- Deletion on request. If you have promised to certify deletion, check what you can actually certify.
- Embargo and pre-release clauses. Unreleased material often has its own, stricter handling rules than the rest of a job.
If the answers rule out a cloud tool, that is useful to know early rather than after a workflow is built around one. tondi for agencies covers the same ground from the procurement side.
What if the footage can't be uploaded at all?
Then no cloud clipper is an option, however good its retention policy, and the alternative is doing the work on your own machine. That is what tondi does: it transcribes, picks the moments, captions and exports on the Mac itself, and there is no server involved — not for the video, not for the transcript, not for the clips. Nothing is retained anywhere because nothing was sent anywhere. The trade-offs are real and listed plainly on the side-by-side with Opus Clip: Apple Silicon only, no YouTube-link import, no speaker tracking, no social scheduler.
Common questions
Can I delete a video from Opus Clip myself?
You can delete projects from your account, and Free-plan projects expire on their own after 3 days. Their terms say deletion from your view does not guarantee removal from their records, and no document gives a date by which the file is gone from their servers.
Does Opus Clip keep the transcript too?
Yes — the privacy policy lists transcripts alongside videos and images as collected content.
Is Opus Clip safe for client work?
That depends on what the client agreed to. If their contract allows a US cloud service to hold the footage for up to 30 days under Opus Clip's terms, yes. If it says the footage can't leave your systems, no cloud tool qualifies.
Does tondi store anything?
No. tondi processes the video on your Mac and its server never receives the file, the transcript or the clips. If you sign in for Pro, the server sees your email and a device id — nothing about your videos. The full list is in the privacy policy.
Is this unique to Opus Clip?
No, and it would be dishonest to imply it. Every cloud clipper uploads, stores and retains, because that is what processing on someone else's servers means. Opus Clip documents it more clearly than most, which is why this page can quote it at all. The only way to remove the question is to not upload.
Does a paid plan keep footage for less time?
The opposite. Free projects expire after 3 days, paid ones after 30, and Pro with cloud storage switched on keeps them indefinitely. Paying buys convenience, not a shorter retention window.
Can I just delete the project as soon as it finishes?
You can remove it from your account, and that is worth doing. What you cannot do from the product is confirm removal from their systems — their terms are explicit that deletion from your view is not the same thing.
Related: tondi vs Opus Clip · every comparison.