For each FAQ, click the down arrow next to the header to read the answer.
Panopto (the company) changed its licensing and fee structure. The new model has significant price increases and imposes new storage limits. SLU was given a short grace period to get recording storage under the current contract's limits to avoid significant added costs. In the current financial climate, SLU must immediately begin to reduce stored content.
While the timing is not ideal, the University is not able to wait until fall 2025 to begin the cleanup effort.
No. Only recordings that have not been viewed within the last 24 months will be impacted at this time.
Before June 1, 2025: Review your Panopto recordings and identify files that have not been accessed in the last 24 months and that you want to preserve. For those you want to preserve, move them to the Panopto Archive or export the MP4s and store them elsewhere. (Note: Recordings stored in the Archive may be restored, but it will take 24-48 hours to access those recordings.) See the Resources page for more information on Archiving Recordings in Panopto.
June 1-August 29, 2025: Review the recordings in your Recycle Bin and restore any files you definitely want to preserve. See the Resources page information on restoring files from your Recycle Bin in Panopto. Recordings that remain in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted on August 30.
All recordings that have not been viewed in at least 24 months will be marked for Deletion on June 1. This will move the files to the Panopto Recycle Bin for 90 days. When the 90-day grace period ends, all files remaining in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted.
Deletion takes place in a two-stage process.
On June 1, 2025: ITS will mark all recordings that have not been viewed in at least 24 months for Deletion. This will move the files to the Panopto Recycle Bin for 90 days. During this 90-day period, you are able to restore recordings you wish to retain. When you restore recordings from the Panopto Recycle Bin, they are placed back into the folder where they were located at the time of Deletion.
On August 30: All files remaining in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted.
They will be permanently deleted after the 90-day grace period ends.
You have several options for ensuring your recordings are not deleted:
Archive the recording in Panopto. Note: The Archive is long-term storage, which means it takes 24-48 hours to retrieve a recording stored in the Archive. In the future, SLU may also have to engage in a cleanup of the Archive by deleting files that are a certain number of years old. No decisions have been made about deleting Archived recordings at this time.
Export the recording as an MP4 and save it elsewhere (e.g., a personal storage drive, OneDrive, Google Drive). Note: materials that belong to you -- such as teaching materials -- are best preserved in a personal storage space to ensure they won't be identified for deletion at some future time, should SLU need to reduce storage in University-provided systems (such as OneDrive and Google Drive).
View the recording to reset the "last-viewed" date. Note: this will keep the recording from being deleted as part of this process, but it will likely be identified for deletion again in the future, unless you use the recording. Additionally, if everyone resets the viewing date, we will be unable to meet our numbers and will have to initiate more aggressive file retention strategies.
No. Due to the way Panopto handles Archiving, recordings must be archived one file at a time. This design is likely intended to ensure you don't accidentally Archive recordings, since there is a 24-48-hour retrieval window for Archived recordings.
Good news, though: when you go to the Archive to restore archived recordings, you ARE able to restore more than one at a time.
ITS is not able to restore or Archive your recordings for you. See the Resources page for instructions on managing your Panopto content.
At this time, we do not have plans to delete recordings moved to the Panopto Archive. However, it is possible the University will, eventually, need to institute a deletion process for Archived recordings that are older than a certain date. Any decision to delete recordings from the Panopto Archive will be communicated widely to all SLU faculty, staff, and students.
All available, non-Archived recordings count against SLU's total "stored hours" with Panopto. This includes recordings in Panopto folders (My Folder and any subfolders), course-related folders (in Blackboard and/or Canvas folders), and the Recycle Bin. Videos stored in all these locations are considered "available" because they can be watched on demand.
Archived hours do not count against our storage limit at this time. They are stored differently, which is why they take 24-48 hours to retrieve.