How to Recover Deleted OBS Recordings?

What is OBS?

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is a widely-used free live streaming and recording software available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Many content creators such as YouTubers and Vloggers rely on OBS to produce high-quality videos, games, and podcasts for online platforms.

If you prefer not to stream content live and want to save your recordings for editing and later streaming, OBS also offers that option. But sometimes, the accidental deletion of OBS recordings is unavoidable during the edition.

At this point, are you eager to recover deleted OBS recordings? If it happens to be your case, you’ve come to the right place.

Where does OBS save recordings?

Some users raise questions like where to find OBS recordings? By default, OBS Studio saves recordings to the video folder in the main document section. You can refer to the steps below to access this folder.

Step 1. Open the OBS app > click File on the top left > select Show Recordings.

Step 2. Then you can see where are OBS recordings saved.

Many users prefer customizing the recording path. To change the default location of the recorded videos, please refer to these clicks.

» Open OBS > click File > Settings > Output > select Recording Path and set a new saved path.

How to recover deleted OBS recordings?

When it comes to problems regarding how to recover deleted OBS recordings? There’re three feasible methods for your reference.

1. Recover deleted OBS recordings from desktop Recycle Bin

If you first delete OBS recordings from your computer hard drive, these recordings can be automatically sent to the Recycle Bin. In this case, you can restore your desired OBS recordings from this temporary storage place as long as you never emptied Recycle Bin. This way also can help you recover deleted voice recordings.

» Double-click on the desktop Recycle Bin to open it > find the deleted OBS video you want > right-click on it > select Restore to get it to the original saved path.

2. Recover permanently deleted OBS recordings from File History backups

Without a doubt, regular backups are the best data loss prevention measures. After emptying the Recycle Bin, your accidentally and recently deleted OBS recordings will become permanently deleted files. Can you recover permanently deleted OBS recordings?

If you’ve made backups, you can restore your needed OBS recordings from these backups. Let’s take File History as an example because this Windows feature enables users to restore deleted, lost, or damaged original files from backups.    

Notes:✎...   

File History can back up files in Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Desktop folders, and Offline OneDrive files saved on the computer.

File History allows you to store backups in the external hard drive or cloud drive as you prefer.

Ensure you’ve opened Control Panel > System and Security to activate your File History. Then you’re allowed to restore the previous versions of files to recover the overwritten Excel files if needed.

Step 1. Type “Control Panel” in the search bar to open it and go to System and Security.

Step 2. When it comes to File History, please select the “Restore your files with File History” option.

Step 3. Click the “Restore personal files” button.

Step 4. “Restore” your selected file to the previously saved path.

If you prefer the change the saved path, you can right-click on “Restore” and select the “Restore to” option to save them.

3. Recover permanently deleted OBS recordings via data recovery software

Without backups, there’ll be no better way than using a professional data recovery to recover deleted & missing files from local hard drives.

Released by AOMEI Tech, MyRecover is designed to recover deleted & lost videos (MP4, MOV, etc.) from internal and external hard drives.   

★Key features of MyRecover: 

All-inclusive: Deal with various data loss scenarios such as deletion, disk formatting, system crashes, or virus attacks.

High-efficiency: Recover 200+ types of files such as videos (MP4, MOV, etc.) Microsoft Word, Excel, PPT, WPS files, compressed files, folders, photos, audio, songs, and websites from internal & external HDDs, USB sticks, SD cards, etc.

Advanced scanning method: MyRecover runs Quick Scan & Deep Scan automatically to search all the recoverable files. Specify the filename, saved path, date, or size to filter your needed files.   

Convenience: Retain the original filename, path, and format for the deleted files.

Excellent compatibility: Support NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and ReFS file systems.

Download MyRecover on your Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, or Server PC to retrieve them!

Step 1. Launch MyRecover > Hover the mouse over the drive saved deleted OBS recordings before, and click Scan.

Step 2. MyRecover will automatically scan your chosen drive and display all the recoverable OBS recordings

Filter your needed OBS videos according to Document Type, Name, Date, or Path.

• Name: Type the relevant filenames in the search bar to locate your desired deleted/lost files quickly.
• Date modified: Set a customized date (today, yesterday, last 7 or 30 days, etc.)
• Size: Filter the file size (<128KB, 128KB~1MB, 1MB~512MB, etc.)

Step 3. Go to the Deleted Files/Recycle Bin/Other Missing Files folder and select your desired files/folders. Then click “Recover x files” to begin the Windows data recovery process.

Notes:✎...

After the recovery process, please remember to store your retrieved OBS recordings in another drive instead of the original hard drive. 

MyRecover can recover your 500MB of files for free in total. If you desire to recover a large number of deleted & missing files from local hard drives, upgrading MyRecover to the Professional or Technician edition is a more cost-effective & effort-saving choice.    

Bonus tips: Recover deleted OBS scenes from the last stream

Creating scenes in OBS Studio can be time-consuming. What’s worse, if you lose them due to accidental deletion, it can be frustrating. So how to recover deleted OBS scenes? You can refer to the following steps.

Step 1. Press Win + E to open File Explorer > click View > Options > under the View tab, tick Show hidden files, folders, and drives.

Step 2. Press Win + R to open the Run box and type “%appdata%” in the box. Then hit “Enter” or press “OK” to open the AppData folder.

Step 3. After opening your AppData folder, find the obs-studio folder and open it.

Step 4. Open the basic folder.

Step 5. Open the scenes folder to view files inside the subfolder.

Step 6. Remove Untitled.json from the scenes folder.

Step 7. Rename the Untitled.json.bak file to .json file. Then you can reboot your PC to see if your last stream has been restored or not.  

Wrapping up

How to recover deleted OBS recordings? And how to recover deleted OBS scenes from the last stream? Please get the corresponding ways from the above content.

If you’re unwilling to suffer the second damage, it’s time for you to cultivate a good habit of making regular backups via Windows features like File History or this freeware AOMEI Backupper.