# Play and manage recordings

Session recording and terminal transcripts are part of Blink Pro (**Session recording** and **Terminal history** in your plan; see [Understand your plan and its limits](/configure/plans-and-limits/#blink-core-and-blink-pro)). When your plan includes them, recording is automatic: Blink records each monitor a technician views as its own video, the computer's sound as a separate audio file, and every terminal as a transcript. A monitor nobody viewed is not recorded. There is no switch to turn recording off.

## When your plan does not include recording

If your plan does not include **Session recording**, the **Recordings** page says **Not included in your plan: Session recording** with *New sessions are not recorded. Existing recordings stay available.* Without **Terminal history** it says **Not included in your plan: Terminal history** with *New terminals are not transcribed. Existing transcripts stay available.*

Recordings and transcripts made earlier stay where they are: you can still play, download and delete them, with the same permissions as before. A session keeps what it started with, so a session started without recording stays without one even after your plan changes. See [When you change plans](/configure/plans-and-limits/#when-you-change-plans).

## Find a recording

1. In the console, open **Recordings**.
2. Search by session code, device, shell or user. Select **Terminals** to show only terminal transcripts.

Recordings are grouped by session. Each group lists its files: **Monitor 1**, **Monitor 2**, **Backstage**, **Audio** and any **Terminal** transcripts, with duration, resolution and size. A **live** badge marks a recording still in progress.

You can also open a session's recording from **Sessions** (the video button on its row, or **Recording** in its details).

Your role decides what you can do: **View recordings** to play, **Download recordings** to download, **Delete recordings** to delete.

## Play a session

Select **Play** on a session. The session player opens in a new tab and plays every monitor and the audio on one shared timeline.

- **Monitor tabs** switch which monitor you watch. A dot on a tab means that monitor was recorded at the current moment.
- **Play/pause**, **back 10 s** and **forward 10 s**, and a speed of 1x, 1.5x, 2x or 4x.
- The readout shows the time into the session and the wall-clock time at the playhead.
- Volume and mute control the session audio.

When the customer shared a phone camera with [Blink View](/use/blink-view/), the camera gets its own tab and lane, named **Camera ·** followed by the phone, for example *Camera · iPhone, Safari*.

If the monitor you picked was not being viewed at that moment, the player says so and offers **Jump to next recording of this monitor**, or to show another monitor recorded at that time.

### The timeline

Under the video, the timeline has one lane per monitor, one for **Audio**, one for **Technicians** (who was viewing when) and one for **Events**. Click or drag anywhere on it to seek.

The legend explains the shading: **Streamed**, **Not viewed or no audio**, **Muted by a technician** and **Agent offline**.

### Events

The **Events** list beside the video shows what happened during the session, such as technicians joining and leaving, connection changes, security events, file transfers and power actions. Select an event to jump to just before it. Use the chips to show or hide kinds of events; a few noisy kinds, such as typed text and audio changes, are hidden until you switch them on. Your choices are remembered. The **Blink View** chip covers the phone camera: *Blink View requested*, *Blink View started*, *Blink View ended* and *Blink View denied*.

Events, muted spans and the technician lane need **View logs**. Without it, the player says they are hidden. They also need a session timeline: for a session started while your plan did not include **Session timeline**, the player says **Event markers are not included in your plan (session timeline)**.

### Chat

When the session had a chat, the side panel has two tabs, **Events** and **Chat**, with the number of chat lines on the tab. **Chat** lists the messages on the session's clock; select one to jump to just before it. Secret messages appear only as sent, viewed or expired, never with their text, and the recording shows a grey **Secret** block where a secret was on the customer's screen. Chat started before an Access session is marked **before**. If the chat is very long, the player says **Only the latest messages are shown here.**; the session's details in **Sessions** show it all. See [Review session history](/use/session-history/#the-chat-transcript).

### Watch a live session

A session that is still running plays too. Select **Go live** to jump to the newest moment and keep following it; the player shows **Live** while it does.

## Download files

Downloads need **Download recordings**.

- In the session player, select **Download** and pick a monitor, a phone camera or the audio file.
- In **Recordings**, select the download button on a file.

Monitor files are video only; the audio is its own file. A Blink View camera is listed as **Phone camera** and downloads as an `.mp4` file. Long recordings may be split into parts.

## Delete a recording

You can delete the recording of a session that has ended. The video and audio are removed; the session, its log and its timeline stay.

1. In **Recordings**, select the delete button on a session, or tick several sessions and select **Delete N recordings**.
2. Confirm.

Sessions are deleted one at a time with a progress bar; **Stop** finishes the one in progress and leaves the rest. Right after a session ends, its recording may take a few seconds to finalize; if Blink says it is still being finalized, try again shortly.

To delete a whole support session with its recording and log, see [Review session history](/use/session-history/#delete-a-support-session).

## Terminal transcripts

Terminal transcripts play in their own player: select **Play transcript** in the session player's **Terminals** list, or the play button on a transcript in **Recordings**. The transcript player can search the output and step through matches, play and pause, and change speed.

Transcripts download as `.cast` files. A `.cast` file contains raw terminal output; replaying it in a real terminal runs its escape sequences.

Deleting a session's recording keeps its transcripts. Delete a transcript on its own with its delete button in **Recordings**, once the terminal is closed. That needs **Delete recordings (any)**: the (own) variant is not enough, so you cannot delete the transcript of a terminal you opened unless your role covers everyone's.

A transcript marked **truncated** reached the recording cap; after that point only the output following each input was kept.
