Files & storage

Choose project and export folders, find your source files and back up your editable work.

Choose where projects are saved

Open Settings → General → Project location. New Studio, Instant and Screenshot projects are saved under projects/studio, projects/instant and projects/screenshot inside that folder. Choosing another location does not move existing projects: previous locations remain in the project picker. The paths below are the defaults; choose Explore in the project’s menu to find its actual folder.

Platform	Default Beam user folder
macOS	~/Movies/Beam/user
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Videos\Beam\user
Linux	~/Videos/Beam/user (or the configured XDG Videos directory)

Default layout — project categories can use a custom location

Beam/user/
  preferences.json
  editor-presets.json
  screenshot-presets.json
  projects/
    studio/
    instant/
    screenshot/
  media/
    wallpapers/image/
    wallpapers/video/
    fonts/
    cursors/
  models/whisper/

Keep recording sources together

Studio projects are stored under projects/studio in their project location. project.json holds the composition and saved editor state. Session folders hold the recorded screen, camera, audio, cursor and timing data.

Rename and reveal projects from Beam. Copy the complete project folder when backing it up; moving individual source files can leave the editor unable to load them.

Typical video project contents

projects/studio/<project>/
  project.json
  session-<id>/
    manifest.json
    screen/
    camera/
    microphone/
    system-audio/
    cursor/
    health.jsonl
    timing.jsonl

Instant keeps the original too

Instant keeps an editable project under projects/instant in the chosen project location. Its automatic MP4 or WebM is saved in that project’s exports folder. The manual Export folder setting does not change this destination.

The clipboard points to the completed video file. Keep it in place until you paste it. A clipboard failure leaves the saved export and source project intact.

Instant export location

projects/instant/<project>/exports/<video>.mp4
projects/instant/<project>/exports/<video>.webm

Screenshot projects and finished images

Screenshot projects live under projects/screenshot/PROJECT_ID in their project location. source.png is the original capture; screenshot.json keeps the composition and undo history. Imported project assets are stored in media.

Manual video and image exports share the Export folder setting in Settings → General and the export dialogs. Enter the filename in Beam, then export directly to that folder. The initial destination is your system Videos folder; afterward you can reuse the last successful folder or choose a fixed one. Beam asks before replacing an existing file. Screenshot Copy sends PNG pixels to the clipboard instead of saving an export file.

Screenshot project contents

projects/screenshot/<id>/
  source.png
  screenshot.json
  media/

Find presets, fonts and other shared assets

Changing Project location does not move preferences, preset files or these shared libraries: they stay in the default Beam/user folder. Back them up alongside your project locations if you want to preserve your complete setup.

Under the default Beam/user folder	Contains
preferences.json	Application settings, shortcuts and remembered project/export locations.
editor-presets.json / screenshot-presets.json	Reusable video and Screenshot presets.
media/wallpapers/image and media/wallpapers/video	Images and videos imported into the background library.
media/fonts and media/cursors	Imported fonts and cursor packs.
models/whisper	Whisper models downloaded for local captions.

Application data and update downloads

The browser profile is separate from your projects, presets and media library. Its usual locations are listed above. Development builds can use a separate profile while sharing the default Beam/user content folder.

Update downloads use a separate beam-updater cache under the system cache location: normally ~/Library/Caches on macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA% on Windows, and XDG_CACHE_HOME or ~/.cache on Linux. Let a pending update finish before removing its files.

Platform	Usual installed application-data location
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Beam
Windows	%APPDATA%\Beam
Linux	~/.config/Beam (or XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Beam)

Back up editable work

Let Beam finish writing
Stop recording and wait for any save or export to complete.
Find the project folder
Open the project’s ⋯ menu in Projects and choose Explore to find its folder.
Copy the entire directory
Copy the project metadata, session folders, source media and imported assets together. Repeat for projects stored in other locations.
Keep reusable assets too
Back up preferences, preset files and shared media from the default Beam/user folder. Keep finished exports from any separate export folders you use.

Let Beam finish writing

Find the project folder

Copy the entire directory

Keep reusable assets too