Questions and answers

A shelf for your videos and a way to share them on your terms: publicly by link, through a temporary link, on request, or by trading one video for another, with people who have an account and with people who don't. There's no feed and no algorithm. People find your shelf because you gave them the link.

Yes. The free plan has no ads, only limits on file size, shelf size and downloads. Pro, from €5 a month, raises or removes those limits, keeps deleted videos longer and adds the video editor, a hidden page, passwords on temporary links and anonymous links to your shelf. Compare Free and Pro.

No. tapeshelf works in the browser, on a computer and on a phone.

Yes, tapeshelf Video Downloader. It downloads videos from almost any site to your computer as one file that plays, with every quality and its size, the sound alone, MP3 and subtitles, and it can also save a video straight to your shelf. It works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Yandex Browser and Firefox.

Yes, on every plan and without an account. Downloading to your computer has no limits and no paid version. Saving videos to your shelf needs a free account and follows your plan, like any upload.

mp4, mov, mkv, avi, webm, wmv and other common formats. We check what's inside the file, so the extension doesn't matter. On the free plan a video can be up to 1 GB and the shelf holds 20 GB; on Pro it's 5 GB and 200 GB. Only your own uploads count, and videos others gave you take no room. Videos longer than 12 hours, or with frames larger than 4096 px, aren't supported.

Sort videos into categories and drag them into the order you want. Drop one video onto another to make a stack, like a folder of apps on a phone, and give it a name and a cover. Upload a folder and its subfolders become stacks. Every shelf has a search, and videos you received but haven't opened yet carry a “new” mark.

In 20 languages: English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Turkish, Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Hindi. The app and the site open in your browser's language; you can switch at the bottom of any page or in Settings. The theme can be light, dark or the same as on your device.

Not yet. The code and an install guide will be published soon, and we'll announce it on the blog. A server of your own will have no plans and no payments: downloads without waiting or limits, and no storage limit unless you set one. What self-hosting will look like.

A private video plays for you, for the people you shared or traded it with and anyone they passed it on to, and for anyone you sent a temporary link to while it works. Everyone else sees its cover and 16-frame preview. A public video plays for anyone with the link. Hide a video from visitors and only you see it on your shelf.

The 16-frame preview works like the cover of a tape: it shows a visitor what they'd be asking for. Every video gets one and it can't be turned off, because requests wouldn't make sense without it. If even the frames mustn't be seen, don't upload that video, or hide it from visitors.

Yes, if they're signed in and may watch them: everyone who has the video on their shelf and, for a public video, anyone signed in. Without an account, people can download only through a temporary link you sent, or what they got from you in a trade as a guest, for a week. The free plan allows 10 downloads a month, one at a time, at up to 1 MB/s and after a short wait page; your own uploads and downloads through a temporary link don't count. Pro has no limits. Playback itself is streamed in encrypted pieces, and the player never gets a link to the file.

No. A copy on someone's shelf is theirs to keep, like a tape you handed over. If you're the author, you can delete the video itself, and then it disappears from every shelf, theirs included, though a file they already downloaded stays with them. You can revoke a temporary link at any time; videos people already added from it to their shelves stay.

Yes. Select it on your shelf and press Delete. Only your copy goes: the video stays with its author and with everyone else who has it, and it doesn't go to “Deleted”. To get it back, you'd have to receive it again.

Yes, on Pro: Settings → My page → “Hide my page”. Your page, shelf and friend lists then open only for you and the moderators, and everyone else gets “page not found”. Videos you already shared or traded stay with the people who have them and keep playing on their shelves. When Pro ends, the page becomes visible again.

Not any more. When you upload a video, we strip the file's metadata: where and when it was shot, the camera, the author, comments and the like. People download the cleaned file. Videos uploaded before 18 October 2026 were left as they were.

No. Shelves and video pages are closed to search engines; only these information pages are indexed. People reach your shelf through a link you give them or through friend lists.

Press “Request this video” under a private video and add a note if you like; you can also offer some of your videos in return right away. The owner can share it for free, accept your offer, ask for something else or decline, and you get a notification as soon as they answer. Without an account you'll see “Offer an exchange” instead, if the owner takes trades from guests: there you upload a video of your own to trade.

Anything on your shelf except bookmarks of public videos, including videos you got in earlier trades. One for one, one for several, several for several. If the other person filled in “Looking for” and “Please don't offer”, you'll see both right in the trade.

Yes, if it came to you through a share or a trade. Bookmarks of public videos can't be traded. The author's name stays on the video.

Nothing bad. You can ask for the same video again after seven days.

Requests between people with accounts don't. They wait on the Requests page until someone answers. A deal with a guest is different: it runs out after three days without a new step, and every step adds three more days.

With a temporary link. Select the videos on your shelf, choose “Temporary link” and set how long it works, from an hour to a week. Whoever opens it can watch the videos and download them at full speed, no account needed. You can tie the link to one email address, and on Pro protect it with a password. More about temporary links.

Yes. They press “Offer an exchange” on the page of your private video, or open an exchange link you sent them (“Copy link → For an exchange”). They upload up to 5 videos of their own in return, and those stay locked until you agree: you see only the title, length, size, quality and frame preview. If you don't take the deal, or nobody moves for three days, their videos are deleted. You can turn off trades with guests in Settings → Profile → Exchanges; exchange links work either way.

They're uploaded and kept locked: while the deal is open, nobody can watch or download them. If the deal is declined, cancelled or runs out, they're deleted from our servers right away. If both sides agree, the videos change hands both ways at once, and you have a week to watch and download what you got on the deal page. Leave your email to get news and a link back to the deal. To keep everything for good, sign in or create an account.

Adding someone means following them; when they add you back, you're friends. Friend lists are public. Friends can message each other, and new videos from the people you follow show up in “What's new”. To bring someone over, send them a link from “Invite a friend”.

Yes. They can no longer request your videos, follow you or message you, and any open requests between you are closed. They aren't told.

Yes, in Settings → Security. After your password you'll confirm with a code from an authenticator app or with a passkey (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a security key). Keep the recovery codes you get: each opens your account once if the phone or key isn't at hand. If you lose both, write to contact@tapeshelf.com. We check that the account is yours and reset the second step. More on account security.

If you're signed in, open Support in the account menu and start a new request: a question, something broken, your account and payment, or an idea. You can attach screenshots, and the answer comes in the app and by email. If you can't sign in, write to contact@tapeshelf.com. To report someone's video or profile, use “Report” on it instead.

Yes, any time, in the billing portal linked from Settings → Plan. Pro stays until the end of the period you paid for, then the account moves to the free plan. Nothing is deleted. If your shelf holds more than the free plan allows, you can't upload more until there's room, a hidden page becomes visible again, and anonymous links to your shelf stop opening.

Settings → Account. Deletion happens at once and can't be undone: your profile goes, and your videos disappear from every shelf, including the shelves of people you traded with. A Pro subscription is cancelled right away, with no refund for the period already paid.

Every video and profile has “Report” in its menu. Pick a reason and add a comment. We review every report and tell you how it ended.

Report the video (reason: copyright) or write to contact@tapeshelf.com. We review every report and remove what infringes someone's rights. How reports work.