Privacy

Privacy

ShadePlay guide › Help

A screen recorder sees a lot. This page says what ShadePlay records, what it keeps, and what goes online.

In short

The only things ShadePlay does online are a daily check on GitHub for a new version, which you can switch off, and downloading an update from GitHub when you ask for one. There is no account, no telemetry and no crash upload, and your recordings never leave your PC unless you share them yourself.

What is recorded, all the time, into memory

While it runs, ShadePlay keeps the last minute (your buffer length) of:

• everything on the recorded monitor: games, the desktop, and whatever pops up there, such as notifications, chat messages and emails;
• everything you hear on the device you listen on: games, videos, music, calls;
• the game's sound, from whichever device it plays on;
• your Discord call, including other people's voices;
• your microphone, while Record my mic is on.

This stays in memory only. It is written to your drive only when you save a clip, and it is gone when ShadePlay exits or its recorder restarts.

What is never recorded: output devices on the never-record list (Audio settings), protected video that Windows blacks out, and the lock screen, sign-in screen and UAC prompts (Windows lets no program record them).

What is kept on your PC

What	Where	What it contains
Clips you save	your clips folder (Videos\ShadePlay by default)	picture and sound, as above
A .json clip info file (off by default; on with the Saving page's box or an after-save command)	next to the clip	the clip's full path (with your Windows user name), the program that was in front with its full path and window title, the detected game, times and technical details (details)
Settings	%APPDATA%\ShadePlay\config.json	your settings, including device IDs, folders and clip names
Logs	%APPDATA%\ShadePlay\logs	what ShadePlay did: file paths (with your Windows user name), clip and game names, device names, errors. For the after-save command, only the program's name is logged, not the whole command line.
Crash dumps	%APPDATA%\ShadePlay\dumps	after a crash only: pieces of what was in the program's memory
YouTube copies	only with the YouTube helper	copies of clips you asked for, deleted after the days you chose
Unpacked FFmpeg	%LOCALAPPDATA%\ShadePlay\ffmpeg, only for a ShadePlay.exe run without Setup	the four FFmpeg DLLs (about 10 MB) and, once you open them from About ShadePlay, the licence texts: copies of what is built into ShadePlay.exe, nothing about you (details)

ShadePlay never deletes your clips. Uninstalling removes the settings, logs and crash dumps only if you say Yes to "Also delete your ShadePlay settings?" (Uninstalling). It also removes the unpacked FFmpeg folder, except a file still in use and a folder that another Windows account owns (delete those yourself).

What goes online

• The update check (installed copy only): about 30 seconds after ShadePlay starts and then once a day, one request to GitHub asks whether a newer version exists. It carries nothing but the app's name and version: no cookies, no account, no ID. Like any web request, GitHub sees your IP address, and Windows may look up your proxy settings first. Nothing is downloaded until you click Update now, unless you switched on automatic updates. An update is downloaded over HTTPS from the project's GitHub release only, checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint GitHub publishes for it, and kept in a folder under %TEMP% that only your account (and the PC's administrators) can open, until ShadePlay removes it again. Switch the check off under Show advanced settings > Check for updates, and ShadePlay never contacts the internet. The environment variable SHADEPLAY_OFFLINE=1 rules out every request.
• Nothing else. Send feedback / report a bug, GitHub page and What's new only open a web page in your browser; nothing is attached or sent. The optional YouTube helper only opens YouTube's upload page in your browser and selects the file in File Explorer: you do the upload, ShadePlay never does.

Sharing safely

Before you share a clip, a log or a screenshot:

• Watch the clip. Check the picture for notifications, messages and anything private, and the sound for other people's voices. Ask before you share someone else's voice.
• Leave a clip's .json file out (if it has one), or read it first: it has your Windows user name in paths, and window titles.
• Read logs before you attach them to an issue: they contain file paths with your Windows user name, and clip and game names. Remove what you don't want public.
• Don't attach crash dumps to a public issue.
• Screenshots of the settings window's Status page show your settings file's path, with your Windows user name.

More in Feedback and bug reports.

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Next: Feedback and bug reports

See also: Clips, folders and names · Start with Windows, updates and uninstalling · FAQ