# Did Sora AI Shut Down? Back Up Your AI Videos Before Cut-Off > Did Sora AI shut down? Yes: the app in April 2026, the API in September. How to export your clips, check every file and save prompts before any AI tool closes. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/back-up-your-ai-videos — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_ _Part of: [Move your AI video work when a tool shuts down](https://professionalstoolkit.com/solutions/move-off-a-shut-down-video-tool) — the guide, the do-it-yourself version and the tools that do it_ --- Did Sora AI shut down? Yes. OpenAI says the Sora web and app experiences were discontinued on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API on September 24, 2026 [1]. If you still have work there, export it now at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset. The same method protects you from the next cut-off: **export the whole library, check every file, and keep each prompt and its settings in a sheet next to the file**. AI video tools retire models and apps on a weeks-to-months horizon, so the backup belongs in your routine, not in a panic. **Sept 24, 2026** — The day OpenAI discontinued the Sora API, five months after the app closed - **Apr 26, 2026** — Sora web and app discontinued - **/sunset** — Sora's export page: sora.chatgpt.com/sunset - **Dec 5, 2026** — Three Google Flow models retire ## Did Sora AI shut down, or is it still shutting down? It is already gone, for everyone. The consumer app and website closed in April 2026, and developers lost the API in late September 2026. OpenAI's help article adds three things that matter for your files. You can export content you created by clicking Export at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset, and you get an email when it is ready. If OpenAI offers a final export window, it emails you before that window begins. After discontinuation and any final export window, OpenAI permanently deletes the data tied to your Sora use. Money is handled separately. Refund questions go through the ChatGPT subscription refund process, and purchased ChatGPT or Sora credits can still be used for Codex. OpenAI's page does not give a reason for the shutdown, so we don't guess one. If you want the full timeline and what it means for creators, [our explainer on what happened to Sora](/articles/what-happened-to-sora) covers it. This page is the practical part: getting your work out and keeping it usable. ## Read the shutdown notice for four facts Every shutdown notice answers the same four questions, even when it buries them. Find each one before you click anything. 1. **The dates, per surface.** Sora had two: the app in April, the API in September. A web tool, a mobile app and an API often close on different days. 2. **The export path.** Is it a button, an email link, or a data request? 3. **The deletion rule.** When does the data disappear for good? 4. **Credits and refunds.** What happens to the balance you paid for? Write those four answers at the top of your backup sheet. Then plan backward from the earliest date. > 💡 **Save the notice as a PDF:** Shutdown pages get updated as dates move. Print the notice to PDF on the day you read it and keep it with your backup. The pattern is not unique to OpenAI. Luma's Genie, its text-to-3D tool, and the Luma 3D Capture app have been sunset since January 1, 2026, according to the App Store release note for Luma 3D Capture. Luma's terms also say it will try to give 30 days' notice before deprecating a material feature, and that customers must back up their own input. *Try to* is not a promise. Treat any notice period as the maximum, not the minimum. ## How to back up your AI videos, step by step Here is the full routine. It works for Sora's final export and for any tool you still use. ### Step 1: Export everything the tool lets you export Start the official export first, because it can take time. For Sora, go to sora.chatgpt.com/sunset, click Export and wait for the email. Download the file the same day. Many tools put expiry on these links, so a link sitting in your inbox is not a backup. Then download what the export may miss. Keep the clips you care about at the highest quality the tool offers. If you used reference images or uploaded footage, collect those originals too. They are the part you cannot regenerate. ### Step 2: Check that every file actually opens A download that finished is not the same as a file that plays. Use FFmpeg's free ffprobe tool to list each clip's name and length in one pass [2]. 1. Install FFmpeg from ffmpeg.org and open a terminal in your export folder. 2. On Mac or Linux, run: `for f in *.mp4; do ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=filename,duration -of csv "$f"; done > check.csv` 3. On Windows Command Prompt, run: `for %f in (*.mp4) do ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=filename,duration -of csv "%f" >> check.csv` 4. Open check.csv. Every clip should show a duration. A clip that prints an error instead, or a duration of zero, is damaged. **Download it again while the source still exists.** Count the rows against the number of clips the tool said you had. ### Step 3: Build a prompt sheet next to the files The video file is the result. The prompt is the recipe, and recipes rarely travel with exports. Open a blank Google Sheet or Excel file and give each clip one row. | Column | What goes in it | |---|---| | File name | Exactly as saved in your backup folder | | Tool and model | The tool, the model name and the month you used it | | Prompt | The full text, copied, not summarized | | Settings | Length, aspect ratio, style or camera options, seed if shown | | Inputs | File names of reference images, audio or source video | | Use and rights | Where it was published, and whose face or voice appears | Keep the prompt sheet in the same folder as the clips. A prompt in one place and a file in another tend to drift apart within a month. > 💡 **Copy prompts while the tool lives:** Once the app closes, the prompt history usually goes with it. Fill the prompt sheet now, even if the videos are already downloaded. ### Step 4: List the jobs the tool did for you This step gets skipped, and it decides how painful the switch will be. Write one line per job, not per feature. *Turn a product photo into a five-second clip with sound.* *Make a vertical teaser from a script.* *Remix someone's clip into a new style.* Note how often you did each job and who depended on it. That list becomes your shopping list. When you compare replacements, you check jobs, not feature pages. Our guide to [Sora alternatives](/articles/sora-alternatives) starts from exactly this kind of job list and maps each one to the tools that do it. ### Step 5: Store two copies in two places Put one copy on your computer or an external drive. Put the second in a cloud folder you control, under your own account, not a teammate's. Copy the prompt sheet along with the videos. Then open three random clips from the cloud copy to confirm the upload worked. ## Don't wait for the next shutdown notice Sora was a whole product closing. The more common event is quieter: a model or feature inside a living product goes away. Runway removed Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro from its own workspace on April 3, 2026, and retired Gen-3 Alpha and Gen-3 Alpha Turbo in mid-2026. If you rely on Runway, its [model lineup and what each one replaced](/articles/runway-ai-models-compared) shows where those jobs moved. Google Flow retires Veo 3.1 Fast, Veo 3.1 Quality and Omni Flash 1.1 on December 5, 2026. Synthesia retires a set of older stock voices on December 15, 2026. > ⚠ **A new model won't redo old clips:** The same prompt on a replacement model gives a different video. The file you saved is the only exact copy. A prompt that worked on a retired model will not give the same clip on its replacement. That is why the model and month column matters. It tells you which results you can rebuild with a fresh prompt, and which ones exist only as the file you saved. Make the backup monthly for any tool you pay for, and the day after any retirement notice. Some links expire on their own, shutdown or not. Runway's API output links expire within 24 to 48 hours. Kling AI's MCP and command-line file links stay valid for 24 hours. Higgsfield keeps API outputs at least 7 days. If an automation generates clips for you, it must download them right away. ## When a hand-kept backup can't keep up The routine above handles a personal library well: a few dozen clips, one person, one tool. It starts to break in three places. First, **prompts that never left the tool**. Unless the tool's export includes prompts, a large library means hours of copying them by hand. Past a hundred or so clips, people stop doing it, and the prompt sheet goes stale. Second, teams. When five people generate in one workspace, nobody owns the prompt sheet, and the clips land in five different download folders. Third, cancelling. Some tools lock your library when the plan ends, so a backup made after cancelling may be too late. Synthesia, for example, makes videos inaccessible at the end of the billing period after you cancel. At that point, pick tools whose own export carries more than the video, or that keep your exports after you stop paying. None of them imports another tool's library, so your own backup still comes first. ### Google Flow — media exported with prompts and settings Google Takeout exports your Flow media together with the prompts and generation settings (model names, camera controls, voice configurations), plus projects, characters and scenes, from the same Google Account. - Where it stops: Takeout download links stay active 7 days, then you request a new export. Veo 3.1 Fast, Veo 3.1 Quality and Omni Flash 1.1 retire in Flow on December 5, 2026. - [Google Flow](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/google-flow) Flow's export is the one that carries the recipe with the clip, which is exactly the column a large library stops filling by hand. Runway gets part of the way there, but only on Enterprise and one asset at a time. ### Runway — lineage per asset, on Enterprise only Enterprise's Asset Lineage ZIP saves an asset with its prompts, models and references, one asset at a time; on other plans you download each asset yourself. - Where it stops: API output links expire within 24 to 48 hours; Workflows and Agent deliver MP4 only. - Plan: Enterprise - [What replaced Runway's retired models](https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/runway-ai-models-compared) · [Runway](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/runway) Neither of these touches the cancelling problem from the list above. InVideo AI answers that one instead of the prompt one: the reverse of Synthesia, where the library goes dark when the billing period ends. ### InVideo AI — exports that outlast cancelling Exports are free and stay available after you cancel, including an editable project for Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve; clips saved from other tools come in as MP4 files. - Where it stops: Timeline exports go up to 1080p MP4; it does not import another tool's library. - [InVideo AI](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/invideo-ai) ## FAQ **What is the Sora shut down date?** There were two dates. OpenAI discontinued the Sora web and app experiences on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API on September 24, 2026. **What happened to Luma Genie?** Luma's Genie (text to 3D) and the Luma 3D Capture app have been sunset since January 1, 2026, according to the App Store release note for Luma 3D Capture. The old Genie page now redirects to Luma's home page. **What happens to my Sora credits?** OpenAI says purchased ChatGPT or Sora credits can still be used for Codex. Refund questions go through its ChatGPT subscription refund article. **Can I import my Sora library into another AI video tool?** None of the tools we compared imports another tool's library, prompts or projects. You bring clips in as files, for example as MP4s into InVideo AI or as reference video in Google Flow, and rebuild prompts from your sheet. ## Your Sora export today, every tool's export next Sora's web app closed on April 26, 2026, and its API on September 24, 2026; OpenAI deletes the remaining data after any final export window. Export at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset today if you have not. Then make the same routine permanent for every AI video tool you use: read the notice for four facts, export, verify each file with ffprobe, keep a prompt sheet with the model and month, list the jobs, and store two copies. The next retirement date is already on someone's calendar. ## Sources [1] OpenAI Help Center — https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001152 (Nov 2026) [2] FFmpeg documentation — https://ffmpeg.org/ffprobe.html (Nov 2026)