Before you cancel
Vimeo keeps source files only while a paid membership does. The order of a clean exit: find which films still have a source, pull or move them while the plan is live, verify what came back, copy the rest by hand, cancel last.
No credit card required. Cancel any time.
Updated September 2026
The deadline
Source-file storage on Vimeo is a paid-plan opt-in, and the help center is plain about the other half of the deal: you must maintain the membership, or the files “may be deleted and may not be recoverable.” The Terms make archiving your responsibility.
60 days
Lapse to Basic
Source files deleted after a lapse to Basic, a membership no longer sold. No figure is published for a lapse to Free.
1 GB
The free cap
Above it, videos are restricted, newest first: no playback, editing or download; embeds and shared links stop.
30 days
Recently deleted
The recovery window for a deleted video. Deleting a restricted video is permanent.
24 hours
API download links
Expiring links, on Standard and above. Files links do not expire.
The day a paid plan ends, the account reverts to a free membership or is deleted, at Vimeo’s option; if it survives, the 1 GB cap applies, and the stored sources have no published survival window. Your own drives still hold the cleanest copies: reconnect the project drive first and treat Vimeo as the second source. The wider migration is in Leaving Vimeo; this page is the part you do first.
The rules, as written
Every row comes from Vimeo’s help center or Terms of Service, fetched 2 September 2026. Where Vimeo gives no timing, the cell says so.
Basic is a legacy membership no longer offered to new customers; the 60-day figure is not extended to Free here. Terms last updated 8 July 2024.
The checklist
Work through it while the plan is live. If the renewal date is closer than the list is long, one more month is cheaper than one lost master.
Film by film, note which still have a source file and which only have Vimeo's re-encode. Source storage is off by default, and API uploads from before September 2016 have no downloadable source.
Check the box next to Keep source video files so nothing new is discarded while you work. Ticking it does not restore files already removed.
Share, then Download, then pick a version; take the source when it is offered. One video at a time, logged in: Vimeo has no bulk download. On Starter this is the only door.
Connect Vimeo once and the library appears. On Standard and above the importer pulls the original you uploaded, server to server, nothing re-encoded. Masters under 3 GB land in one pass; larger ones run as a chunked, resumable job.
Read each file's resolution, frame rate and size. A 4K H.264 file at 22 Mbps or below matches Vimeo's playback ceiling, not your export, unless the export really was that small. A source matches the size in your project folder.
Titles, descriptions, showcases, captions and comments are yours to save; nobody moves them for you. Paste text into a sheet, save the caption files, export or screenshot the threads you need.
Put a second copy of every source on a different drive or in a different place. The Vimeo copy is about to stop being a copy.
With every film verified, cancel. If the account survives as a free membership, keep it while links and embeds are swapped, knowing the 1 GB cap restricts the newest uploads first.
US dollars, monthly billing, from vimeo.com/upgrade-plan, fetched 2 September 2026; annual billing is $12, $25 and $75 a month. Every plan allows 300 GB and 24 hours per file. The API gate also covers Pro, Business, Premium and Enterprise.
The API gate is Vimeo’s, not ours: the importer pulls the untouched original for a Standard member and nothing at all for a Starter member, whose films come out one at a time from the video page. With a large library on Starter, one month of Standard at $41 puts the whole catalogue inside the gate for a single import job; one month of Starter at $20 buys time to finish by hand. Either is cheaper than a re-shoot.
The honest part
Every upload to Vimeo is transcoded onto a fixed ladder of playback files, and the ladder has a ceiling. The source is the export you uploaded; the versions offered for download are the ladder. When the source is gone, the top rung is all that is left.
7 Mbps
1080p, H.264
Maximum, at 60 fps.
12 Mbps
2K, H.264
Maximum.
22 Mbps
4K, H.264
Maximum; the top of the published H.264 ladder.
16 Mbps
4K, HEVC
Maximum.
Vimeo states that the bitrates listed for each resolution are maximums. A master exported above the 4K rung has been compressed a second time, on a ladder you did not choose, and the discarded detail does not come back. That is a re-encode: a playback copy, sized to stream anywhere, not a file to grade, re-cut or archive from. If your export was a modest H.264 under the ceiling, the re-encode is close to what you sent; you still want the source, because a copy of a copy is never better than the original. The mechanism is in video bitrate, explained; the side-by-side with what streams here is uncompressed.io vs Vimeo.
The same day
The importer exists so the checklist does not turn into a weekend. Connect your Vimeo account once; the library appears; select all, or tick the films you want. Files move server to server, never through your connection, nothing re-encoded; the mechanics are in moving Vimeo videos without re-uploading. What lands here streams as the exact bytes stored: H.264, HEVC and AV1 play in the browser; ProRes 422, ProRes 4444 and DNxHR are hosted for client download, not streamed. Storage is the only meter, with views, uploads and viewers unlimited on every plan; sizes are on the pricing page, and a finished project can go cold on Max and Vault, as the hot versus cold guide explains. The free tier gives you 1 GB to try one real film first.
When to keep paying Vimeo, for now
Questions
Vimeo's Terms say the account will, at Vimeo's option, revert to a free membership or be deleted, and that content may be deleted to fit the new status. On Free, everything above the 1 GB cap is restricted rather than deleted, newest uploads first. Stored source files are the exception: they may be deleted and may not be recoverable.
For a lapse to Free, Vimeo publishes no window: source files may be deleted and may not be recoverable. The one published figure, 60 days, applies to a lapse to the legacy Basic membership, which new customers cannot get. Plan around the last paid day, not around an unwritten grace period.
Then Vimeo holds only its re-encodes. Source storage is off by default, ticking the box now does not restore removed files, and API uploads from before September 2016 have no downloadable source. Your project folder is the master. The importer brings the largest file Vimeo serves, which is no replacement for your export.
Check the bitrate against Vimeo's ladder: H.264 tops out at 7 Mbps for 1080p at 60 fps, 12 Mbps for 2K and 22 Mbps for 4K, HEVC 4K at 16 Mbps, all maximums. A file at or under those figures is almost certainly a transcode. The source carries the codec and bitrate you chose and matches the size of the export in your project folder.
No. It moves the video files. Titles, descriptions, showcases, captions and comment threads are yours to copy by hand before the plan lapses; the checklist has a step for it. Feedback here lives in the review room, where comments are timecoded and tied to versions.
Keep it until nothing points at it, if Vimeo leaves it standing as a free membership. Embeds and shared links for restricted videos stop working on Free, newest uploads first, so a large library will not survive as a redirect stub. Deleting a restricted video is permanent; a deleted video is recoverable for 30 days only.
Connect Vimeo once and the files move server to server, originals where your plan exposes them, nothing re-encoded. Storage is the only meter here; views, uploads and viewers are unlimited on every plan.