Storages & Retention

Clips and screenshots

New clip exports and manual screenshots require a default output storage:

1. Open Settings → Storages.
2. Under Clips & Screenshots, add or select an output storage.
3. Set it as the default destination.

Files are written on the VMS host, not downloaded directly to the browser. The legacy workers.clips_output_path and workers.screenshots_output_path settings remain only for existing records; they are not destinations for new exports.

Local, mount, and SFTP backend types from older builds are no longer supported. Configure one explicit output storage for new clips and screenshots.

Alta archive storages

The Settings → Storages page also lists the archive storages defined on your Alta servers, where camera recordings live. You can delete an archive storage from here.

Danger

Deleting an archive storage detaches every camera that was recording to it (their recording is turned off) and, on the Alta side, permanently removes the archived footage stored there. There is no undo — export anything you need as a clip first.

Retention

A cleanup worker runs on a schedule and removes data past its retention window — clips, screenshots, events, and logs each have their own policy. This keeps disk usage bounded automatically. The audit-log retention period is configurable under Settings → Storages and defaults to one year.

Event retention is keyed on when the event was created — resolving an event does not extend how long it is kept.

Keep the database and output storage on durable disks. Routine altavms backup archives the database and configuration but excludes clips, screenshots, and Alta recordings; back those up separately if required.