Clips Folders and Names

Clips, folders and names

ShadePlay guide › Your clips

Where your clips are saved, how ShadePlay names them after the game, and the optional .json clip info file.

Where clips go

• By default: Videos\ShadePlay (your Windows Videos folder, wherever it is).

• One folder per game, and one file per clip:

  Videos\ShadePlay\<Game>\<Game> 2026-09-24 21-15-03.mp4
  

• The date and time are your PC's local time when you pressed the hotkey.

• Clips made while no game or app was in front are named Desktop.

• The tray menu's Open clips folder opens the folder.

How the name is chosen

A clip is named after what you were doing during it:

1. the game ShadePlay detected for the longest time inside the clip (how a game is detected);
2. otherwise, the app that was in front for most of the clip.

For that program, ShadePlay takes the first of these that gives a real name:

1. your own clip name for that program (advanced: Games and clip names);
2. the game's name in your Steam library;
3. the product name written into the program file;
4. the program file's description;
5. the window title (the part before the first " - ");
6. the program's file name.

Names that say nothing, such as "Game", "Launcher", "Application" or an engine's name, are skipped. If a game's clips still get an odd name, give that game your own name in Show advanced settings > Games > Clip names; the settings window's own example is Overwatch.exe → Overwatch 2.

Names that work everywhere

Folder and file names are made safe for Windows and for macOS, because clips are often copied to other computers:

• characters Windows or macOS can't store (< > : " / \ | ? * and control characters) are removed, and so are ™, ® and ©;
• names are cut to 80 characters, and names Windows reserves (such as CON or AUX) get a _;
• an empty result becomes Unknown.

A name that is already taken

ShadePlay never overwrites a clip. If the name is taken (two saves in the same second), the new clip becomes <name> (2).mp4, then (3) and so on.

Choosing another folder

On the settings page, Clips folder takes any folder: a second drive, or a network share such as \\server\share\Clips.

• Browse… picks a folder, Open shows the current one in File Explorer.
• Leave it empty to use Videos\ShadePlay.
• Each game still gets its own folder in there.
• Paths with %VARIABLES% work. A relative path (such as Clips) is taken inside ShadePlay's data folder, and the settings window warns you about that.

When the folder can't be reached (a network drive that is offline, a disk that is unplugged), ShadePlay doesn't lose the clip. It saves to Videos\ShadePlay instead, the tray menu shows ⚠ Your clips folder can't be reached – saving to Videos\ShadePlay, and the Clip saved notification says where the clip went. Your setting is kept; clips go back to your folder once it is there again.

The .json file next to each clip

By default ShadePlay puts only the clip in the folder. For scripts and tools it can also write a small text file with the same name and .json at the end (a "clip info file", also called a "sidecar"):

• To turn it on, go to Show advanced settings > Saving and tick Write a clip info file (.json) next to each clip. It takes effect from the next clip.
• It is always written while an after-save command is set, because the command can get its path. Clips saved before you turned it on have no .json file.

It holds details about the clip:

• the clip's file name and full path, its name and where the name came from;
• the detected game (name and program file), or none;
• the program that was in front, with its full program path and its window title, and how much of the clip it was in front;
• start and end time, length, codec, width, height, frame rate, HDR or not, the audio tracks and the file size;
• the hotkey and how the save was started (hotkey, tray menu, command line);
• ShadePlay's version, and the YouTube helper's upload status.

Read it before you share it. The paths contain your Windows user name, and window titles can contain anything, for example a document or chat name. See Privacy.

You can delete these files. The clip plays without them, and nothing in ShadePlay needs them. When one is there, the optional YouTube helper notes in it that the clip was handed to YouTube or that a copy was prepared; it never creates one.

If ShadePlay stops while saving

A clip is written as <name>.mp4.part and renamed when it is complete, so a half-written file never looks like a clip. If ShadePlay or the PC stops in between, the next start renames a complete .part file into a clip and removes an incomplete one.

ShadePlay never deletes clips

Neither ShadePlay nor its uninstaller ever deletes a clip. The only files ShadePlay deletes by itself are the optional YouTube copies it made, after the number of days you chose (YouTube helper).

---

Next: Audio tracks

See also: Games and clip names · Playing, sharing and YouTube · Privacy