What's recorded and how long it's kept

To start recording, see Record and play back sessions.

What is recorded

• Always: what the terminal showed, and each resize.
• Only with Also record what I type (off by default, since typing can hold secrets): your typing.
• Never: typing while the session waits at a password, passphrase or PIN prompt Sternway recognises, or while a Telnet server has echo off.

A prompt is recognised when the last line ends in :, > or ? and has a word such as password, passphrase, PIN or secret, or the German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Nordic, Polish, Czech, Russian, Japanese, Chinese or Korean word.

Caution

With typing recorded, a secret typed anywhere else, or at a prompt worded otherwise (Verification code:, Token:), is recorded.

How long they’re kept

Set these per device in Settings › Logs › Session recordings:

Setting	Range	Default	Meaning
Largest recording (MB)	1 to 100	50	A longer session continues in a new part, which plays on its own from an empty screen.
Keep recordings for (days)	0 to 3650	30	Older recordings are deleted. 0 keeps them forever.
Space for recordings (MB)	16 to 65,536	1,024	Over it, the oldest finished recordings go, except the newest.

A running recording is never deleted. Recordings are stored in the app’s database in 64 KiB pieces, each encrypted with the device’s data key.

Team recording rules

Members’ desktop apps apply the rule, not the server. An older app, the phone app or a modified app doesn’t record. Treat it as a convenience for honest teams, and use the audit log for the server’s record. sternway-cli run and Run on hosts aren’t recorded either.

Settings › Logs › Export my activity writes this device’s connection history, session logs and recordings (host, start, end, size) as CSV or NDJSON.