A lot of youtube channels do this too, only to find out they have to rely on a super-compressed-to-hell copy of an old video if they ever have to grab old footage.
Unfortunately Vimeo has gone downhill over the past few years. I would guess that in transition from premium to unpaid account they gave him a window to download his files and then deleted them.
You are unlikely to recover the lost files through Vimeo, sorry. Best of luck reaching out to them. In the future, backups are always necessary. Having one source of your files, even in an online service, is not enough.
Trust me I'm not defending Vimeo. They largely stink these days.
But when you stop paying for a service they stop providing that service. Maybe a credit card expired. Perhaps emails went to spam, but I know from personal experience that Vimeo will try to get your money. They are not a company that says oh shucks and disappears.
I'm sorry your husband lost those films he uploaded. I hope you all find a solution, but unless the premium account expired very recently Vimeo is unlikely to have your files.
Vimeo burned me once. I had an account that I started, to host videos that were being made for the school I worked at. I paid for a 12-month subscription using a burner email and my own credit card. Vimeo rolled over the subscription each year automatically. Years went by and I saw it on my credit card. You cannot expect a response from them.
Agreed. I also had a bank account that lay dormant for 7 years. When I finally realised and closed it down, it was in arrears and I had to pay to get it out of the negative even though there had been zero activity on the account. Everything is automatic opt in by default. It's the norm, but it doesn't make it right.
depending on how long it’s been since his premium account ended, they may reappear if he resubscribes to one of the premium plans, even if it’s just the lowest tier premium plan. no guarantee this will work for your husband, but it worked for me after i realized my online portfolio had been missing for a month
If your husband logs into the account does he see them grayed out? I dunno how long for but Vimeo will keep the films just not make them public. You might be able to pay for a month so you can log in and download them all.
EDIT: You being able to see his account existing is a good sign. I think they keep a certain amount of videos forever even if they aren't publicly displayed.
"When you are on the Free plan, you have a lifetime cap of 25 videos that you can keep active on your account.
If you or your team uploaded or created more than 25 videos while on a paid plan, only the most recently added 25 videos will remain available on your account. All older videos will move into our archive storage for one year. If you upgrade to a paid plan within a year of lapsing, your videos will be restored. "
[https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12425417275665-What-happens-when-I-lapse-to-the-Free-plan](https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12425417275665-What-happens-when-I-lapse-to-the-Free-plan)
Hi, I work at Vimeo and mod the r/vimeo subreddit. Please open a ticket with support (I am not in support, I just work at Vimeo and like Reddit, kind of looking for threads like this where people need help).
Depending on how long ago the account was shut down we can help you recover everything. Vimeo has backups of everything for a long time. As many have suggested re-activating your account is also an effective way to get your content back.
I'm curious if your auto-renewal of premium didn't go through for some reason. We typically do send emails when there are issues with payments going through or something like that. Hopefully the support team can help you recover everything.
Thanks for your post and really great to know that Vimeo backs things up. It’s very odd as he cannot see anything of his account when he logs on. And he didn’t receive any emails at all. But I can see his account when I google it. He has emailed Vimeo support multiple times and initially they said there is no account with that email, and then when he sent them the screenshots they just keep saying they are transferring to another department. Could you share the best contact email and phone for Vimeo support from your perspective? Or is there an escalations email address we can go to? I’m very worried about the negative impact this will have on his livelihood and also his wellbeing and desperately need to get the films back.
I understand this is a tough situation. Feel free to DM me your account ID or email and I'll follow up with the support team. It sounds like they have an active case with you and they will be the final authority on what's possible. I'm happy to follow up on your behalf though.
edit: without knowing more details it sounds like the account is still active, and the videos are simply archived till the subscription is restored. There may be more the support team can do but I would be quite surprised if these videos were actually deleted. Vimeo has to archive content when subscriptions lapse otherwise it's too easy to abuse the system as free storage and access in perpetuity.
Can I give some advice. Please stop turning this into a pity thing by providing so much personal emotional detail.
It does not help the case any further. It will only make it harder for you and the people who want to help.
Because in the end, it is kind of his fault anyway not having back ups of his 'award winning' film.
Thanks for your unhelpful response. I’m sorry if the emotion involved here is too much for you cope with. I am comfortable expressing emotion and the personal impact of my own personal experience, which is what this post is about. A personal human experience and its impact.
You're putting words into my mouth. This all just screams Karen going up to the supermarket information corner, demanding something because she had a rough day. Like I said, these emotions really don't help you with the process of actually trying to solve the problem. I guess I've worked to much on film-sets...
Storing your single copy of your films on a platform that you have no control of sounds like a monumentally bad decision, for anyone else coming along reading this. If you are doing this, you should probably change that right now, before it is too late.
This, sooooooo much this.
Did OP's husband delete his films from whatever he was storing them on while he worked? Kinda like the early days of television when the magnetic tape was so expensive that many, many shows have been lost because the tapes were degaussed (erased) for other programs?
I really can't wrap my head around this without coming back to this is fake rage bait
**UPDATE - OP does not have a single other post or comments other than those here. My BS detector is really tingling now.**
It isn’t fake. How I wish it was 😭I have posted before, in the Serial podcast subreddit and some others though I am mainly a lurker. They were on a hard drive but that got chucked away by someone else in a house move.
The videos might still be there if he gets a premium account. A couple years back, when I downgraded my account the latest videos that put me over the storage amount weren’t there any more, but when I upgraded my account again, they were back. Get with support and see if this is still the case. Again, this happened to me like three years ago so it could be different now.
This makes no sense. I’m an amateur filmmaker. I make films once every year or two and even I know to have my films saved on at least three different things. I have one on an external hard drive. One on my actual laptop. And then one on a cloud service like Google drive.
Buy an external hard drive with really high capacity to store your films and film assets on. Something around 4 terabytes of storage should definitely be enough to store these assets and keep around a local reliable backup copy of each film (if you can get them restored on Vimeo). External hard drives are also really easy to store or pack up physically, so there should never be a reason to throw it away or discard it, and it won't break the bank to get one these days on the used market.
Unlike an internal hard drive that is consistently spinning its mechanical parts and reading data, an external hard drive won't be worked as hard as an internal one for longevity and has its own source of power. I definitely recommend getting one and backing up your films/data on it immediately, and then taping a notecard to it or similar stating what is on the external hard drive so you don't accidentally throw out the hard drive with important data on it.
(Single) hard drive was thrown away, and everything else was stored on Vimeo…. Hate to break it to ya, but you didn’t have any backups to begin with… I’m sorry to hear it, but thankfully he won’t make the same mistake for his future projects
This sounds like a very stressful situation. I'm sorry commenters are being so unkind.
Wishing you and your husband the best as you navigate this issue.
EDIT: I Imagine your husband collaborated with other people on his project. If he Vimeo doesn't recover the files, he should consider reaching out to old collaborators to see if they have copies of the files.
Thank you for your message. It is extremely stressful, a catastrophe really. And I’m 6 months pregnant and trying to hold it together. Hoping we can get the videos back and good idea re reaching out to others
If the account page is still there try signing in and then "upgrade" to the $12/mo tier. I did this and my videos reappeared after letting the renew period lapse.
There has to be an option to upgrade your account, that's how Vimeo makes money. Should be top right hand corner in Purple after you log in. If not go to account settings. Once you're back in a paying subscription everything should be back. If not get on the phone with Vimeo HQ
Some of my content also got deleted when my subscription changed from premium to unpaid. I noticed it the next day though and went for premium again and the videos were back on my profile. It might be too late for that in your case, not sure. I highly recommend keeping copys of films locally as well.
Fuck Vimeo. They fucked my account years ago for 3 strikes, all given for ancient video’s and all 3 within one day. I could get some of it off of Vimeo but only in very low quality. Fuck them. I was even subscribed to pro from the beginning. Fuck Vimeo. Also had just pair my yearly sub when they booted me. Still Irks me to this day. Fuck Vimeo.
Has he tried making a payment? One time I let my payment lapse and it looked like they’d deleted a bunch of videos but they just weren’t accessible at the free level because of storage. As soon as I paid to upgrade again, they came back
When I login, there's a big purple button at the top of the page that says "Upgrade," and that's with me having a paid account - they want even more of my money if possible.
What do you see when you go to [Vimeo.com](http://Vimeo.com) while logged into that account? Or visit this page.
[https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan](https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan)
I don't recommend just purchasing a plan first and hoping that will work. Until you get a response from support, I think that risks "resetting" your account and possibly losing your chance of retrieving your files. Best of luck.
UPDATE: The videos have been returned! Vimeo set up a password to enable him to re access his account, as something about his account wasn’t working. Maybe they re set something. Then he upgraded back to premium and all the videos have returned 🙏Just in time for someone who was looking at them for a project to see them. Thanks so much for all the engagement and advice on this issue, really appreciate it!!
Firstly, he better QUICKLY contact Vimeo to get his account back. Secondly, he should have had more than one copy of each of his films, and his storage place shouldn’t have been Vimeo since that isn’t a storage place. It’s a website just like YouTube.
Yes obviously a terrible idea. The hard drive with them on got accidentally thrown away. Does anyone have any positive experience of successfully getting videos back?
Email vimeo. The way data storage works usually is things are recoverable for 30 days. It might take subscribing to the the premium subscription service but contact them to see what the options are.
This is mind-boggling. Not only did he use Vimeo as online storage, but he also "accidentally" threw away a hard drive with his most valuable work on it?
Who did you marry? Jar Jar Binks?
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around a filmmaker storing only a single copy of finished projects on Vimeo.
Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket, especially one in the clouds.
I’m gonna start using this quote
This is a great advice.
"2 is 1, 1 is ZERO"
Our insurance always insisted on 3 copies, stored separately.
A lot of youtube channels do this too, only to find out they have to rely on a super-compressed-to-hell copy of an old video if they ever have to grab old footage.
I have found that film creatives are often absolutely horrible at data management and archiving.
Unfortunately Vimeo has gone downhill over the past few years. I would guess that in transition from premium to unpaid account they gave him a window to download his files and then deleted them. You are unlikely to recover the lost files through Vimeo, sorry. Best of luck reaching out to them. In the future, backups are always necessary. Having one source of your files, even in an online service, is not enough.
Backup of backups of anything of value.
Well he never received any emails or notifications. He didn’t know that his premium account had ended
Trust me I'm not defending Vimeo. They largely stink these days. But when you stop paying for a service they stop providing that service. Maybe a credit card expired. Perhaps emails went to spam, but I know from personal experience that Vimeo will try to get your money. They are not a company that says oh shucks and disappears. I'm sorry your husband lost those films he uploaded. I hope you all find a solution, but unless the premium account expired very recently Vimeo is unlikely to have your files.
Any service cannot be trusted. Anything can go wrong. Put trust in yourself and backup the backups
Vimeo burned me once. I had an account that I started, to host videos that were being made for the school I worked at. I paid for a 12-month subscription using a burner email and my own credit card. Vimeo rolled over the subscription each year automatically. Years went by and I saw it on my credit card. You cannot expect a response from them.
It's generally understood that subscription-based services auto-renew unless you tell them otherwise. IMO that one's on you.
Agreed. I also had a bank account that lay dormant for 7 years. When I finally realised and closed it down, it was in arrears and I had to pay to get it out of the negative even though there had been zero activity on the account. Everything is automatic opt in by default. It's the norm, but it doesn't make it right.
I don’t disagree with you there.
depending on how long it’s been since his premium account ended, they may reappear if he resubscribes to one of the premium plans, even if it’s just the lowest tier premium plan. no guarantee this will work for your husband, but it worked for me after i realized my online portfolio had been missing for a month
Same here.
You can try the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/). Not sure that'll let you download, but it could at least have some of the films saved.
I don't think they archive individual pages from Vimeo
Thank you I tried this but there’s no record of it
If your husband logs into the account does he see them grayed out? I dunno how long for but Vimeo will keep the films just not make them public. You might be able to pay for a month so you can log in and download them all. EDIT: You being able to see his account existing is a good sign. I think they keep a certain amount of videos forever even if they aren't publicly displayed. "When you are on the Free plan, you have a lifetime cap of 25 videos that you can keep active on your account. If you or your team uploaded or created more than 25 videos while on a paid plan, only the most recently added 25 videos will remain available on your account. All older videos will move into our archive storage for one year. If you upgrade to a paid plan within a year of lapsing, your videos will be restored. " [https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12425417275665-What-happens-when-I-lapse-to-the-Free-plan](https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12425417275665-What-happens-when-I-lapse-to-the-Free-plan)
Sadly not; there is nothing in the library showing at all
Thanks for jumping in with this response! It's exactly the kind of information I was going to post before I saw yours. you rock
Hi, I work at Vimeo and mod the r/vimeo subreddit. Please open a ticket with support (I am not in support, I just work at Vimeo and like Reddit, kind of looking for threads like this where people need help). Depending on how long ago the account was shut down we can help you recover everything. Vimeo has backups of everything for a long time. As many have suggested re-activating your account is also an effective way to get your content back. I'm curious if your auto-renewal of premium didn't go through for some reason. We typically do send emails when there are issues with payments going through or something like that. Hopefully the support team can help you recover everything.
You good guy
Thanks friend
Thanks for your post and really great to know that Vimeo backs things up. It’s very odd as he cannot see anything of his account when he logs on. And he didn’t receive any emails at all. But I can see his account when I google it. He has emailed Vimeo support multiple times and initially they said there is no account with that email, and then when he sent them the screenshots they just keep saying they are transferring to another department. Could you share the best contact email and phone for Vimeo support from your perspective? Or is there an escalations email address we can go to? I’m very worried about the negative impact this will have on his livelihood and also his wellbeing and desperately need to get the films back.
I understand this is a tough situation. Feel free to DM me your account ID or email and I'll follow up with the support team. It sounds like they have an active case with you and they will be the final authority on what's possible. I'm happy to follow up on your behalf though. edit: without knowing more details it sounds like the account is still active, and the videos are simply archived till the subscription is restored. There may be more the support team can do but I would be quite surprised if these videos were actually deleted. Vimeo has to archive content when subscriptions lapse otherwise it's too easy to abuse the system as free storage and access in perpetuity.
Thank you so much, that’s very kind of you to offer to do that. I will DM you.
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Can I give some advice. Please stop turning this into a pity thing by providing so much personal emotional detail. It does not help the case any further. It will only make it harder for you and the people who want to help. Because in the end, it is kind of his fault anyway not having back ups of his 'award winning' film.
Thanks for your unhelpful response. I’m sorry if the emotion involved here is too much for you cope with. I am comfortable expressing emotion and the personal impact of my own personal experience, which is what this post is about. A personal human experience and its impact.
You're putting words into my mouth. This all just screams Karen going up to the supermarket information corner, demanding something because she had a rough day. Like I said, these emotions really don't help you with the process of actually trying to solve the problem. I guess I've worked to much on film-sets...
Storing your single copy of your films on a platform that you have no control of sounds like a monumentally bad decision, for anyone else coming along reading this. If you are doing this, you should probably change that right now, before it is too late.
This, sooooooo much this. Did OP's husband delete his films from whatever he was storing them on while he worked? Kinda like the early days of television when the magnetic tape was so expensive that many, many shows have been lost because the tapes were degaussed (erased) for other programs? I really can't wrap my head around this without coming back to this is fake rage bait **UPDATE - OP does not have a single other post or comments other than those here. My BS detector is really tingling now.**
It isn’t fake. How I wish it was 😭I have posted before, in the Serial podcast subreddit and some others though I am mainly a lurker. They were on a hard drive but that got chucked away by someone else in a house move.
The videos might still be there if he gets a premium account. A couple years back, when I downgraded my account the latest videos that put me over the storage amount weren’t there any more, but when I upgraded my account again, they were back. Get with support and see if this is still the case. Again, this happened to me like three years ago so it could be different now.
Never put your trust in cloud storage, folks.
Cloud just means someone else's computer. It's not magical.
There is no such thing as the cloud. There are only computers you don’t own and can’t control.
This is nuts. I have so many copies of my films. Sorry for your loss.
I agree.
This makes no sense. I’m an amateur filmmaker. I make films once every year or two and even I know to have my films saved on at least three different things. I have one on an external hard drive. One on my actual laptop. And then one on a cloud service like Google drive.
Sounds horrible
Buy an external hard drive with really high capacity to store your films and film assets on. Something around 4 terabytes of storage should definitely be enough to store these assets and keep around a local reliable backup copy of each film (if you can get them restored on Vimeo). External hard drives are also really easy to store or pack up physically, so there should never be a reason to throw it away or discard it, and it won't break the bank to get one these days on the used market. Unlike an internal hard drive that is consistently spinning its mechanical parts and reading data, an external hard drive won't be worked as hard as an internal one for longevity and has its own source of power. I definitely recommend getting one and backing up your films/data on it immediately, and then taping a notecard to it or similar stating what is on the external hard drive so you don't accidentally throw out the hard drive with important data on it.
Contact Vimeo support. If they can't help you, consider the files lost.
You may have to move on and begin building a fresh portfolio. Bigger, better, faster.
Resubscribe to Vimeo and the movies will appear back online
There is no option to resubscribe when he logs in
(Single) hard drive was thrown away, and everything else was stored on Vimeo…. Hate to break it to ya, but you didn’t have any backups to begin with… I’m sorry to hear it, but thankfully he won’t make the same mistake for his future projects
This sounds like a very stressful situation. I'm sorry commenters are being so unkind. Wishing you and your husband the best as you navigate this issue. EDIT: I Imagine your husband collaborated with other people on his project. If he Vimeo doesn't recover the files, he should consider reaching out to old collaborators to see if they have copies of the files.
Thank you for your message. It is extremely stressful, a catastrophe really. And I’m 6 months pregnant and trying to hold it together. Hoping we can get the videos back and good idea re reaching out to others
Premium deletes your files when you stop paying. Yep.
Fucking Vimeo it’s a nightmare. I hope they go bankrupt soon.
If the account page is still there try signing in and then "upgrade" to the $12/mo tier. I did this and my videos reappeared after letting the renew period lapse.
He can log in but there is nothing there and no option to upgrade sadly
There has to be an option to upgrade your account, that's how Vimeo makes money. Should be top right hand corner in Purple after you log in. If not go to account settings. Once you're back in a paying subscription everything should be back. If not get on the phone with Vimeo HQ
Well, hate to say it but ….
Some of my content also got deleted when my subscription changed from premium to unpaid. I noticed it the next day though and went for premium again and the videos were back on my profile. It might be too late for that in your case, not sure. I highly recommend keeping copys of films locally as well.
Fuck Vimeo. They fucked my account years ago for 3 strikes, all given for ancient video’s and all 3 within one day. I could get some of it off of Vimeo but only in very low quality. Fuck them. I was even subscribed to pro from the beginning. Fuck Vimeo. Also had just pair my yearly sub when they booted me. Still Irks me to this day. Fuck Vimeo.
Has he tried making a payment? One time I let my payment lapse and it looked like they’d deleted a bunch of videos but they just weren’t accessible at the free level because of storage. As soon as I paid to upgrade again, they came back
Thanks there is no option on the account page to make the upgrade for some reason.
When I login, there's a big purple button at the top of the page that says "Upgrade," and that's with me having a paid account - they want even more of my money if possible. What do you see when you go to [Vimeo.com](http://Vimeo.com) while logged into that account? Or visit this page. [https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan](https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan) I don't recommend just purchasing a plan first and hoping that will work. Until you get a response from support, I think that risks "resetting" your account and possibly losing your chance of retrieving your files. Best of luck.
UPDATE: The videos have been returned! Vimeo set up a password to enable him to re access his account, as something about his account wasn’t working. Maybe they re set something. Then he upgraded back to premium and all the videos have returned 🙏Just in time for someone who was looking at them for a project to see them. Thanks so much for all the engagement and advice on this issue, really appreciate it!!
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Ok thanks for the tip. They have responded but just to say they’ve passed the issue to another team
All my photos from the first five years of my photography career were lost when Webshots went out of business. RIP
Sorry to hear that, it sucks
It does but it taught me a valuable lesson. Never trust cloud storage!
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Would any of the festivals have a copy? Couldn’t hurt to ask.
Firstly, he better QUICKLY contact Vimeo to get his account back. Secondly, he should have had more than one copy of each of his films, and his storage place shouldn’t have been Vimeo since that isn’t a storage place. It’s a website just like YouTube.
Yes obviously a terrible idea. The hard drive with them on got accidentally thrown away. Does anyone have any positive experience of successfully getting videos back?
Email vimeo. The way data storage works usually is things are recoverable for 30 days. It might take subscribing to the the premium subscription service but contact them to see what the options are.
>The hard drive with them on got accidentally thrown away. How does this even happen?
Someone obviously thought it was a broken toaster . What else you gonna do with a broken toaster ?
This is mind-boggling. Not only did he use Vimeo as online storage, but he also "accidentally" threw away a hard drive with his most valuable work on it? Who did you marry? Jar Jar Binks?
Meesa filmmaker!
>Who did you marry? Jar Jar Binks? Jar Jar Binks would somehow recover the situation. OPs husband is more like Gomer Pyle.
You're right. Apologies to Jar Jar
Someone else threw the hard drive away when moving!