TL;DR. Every Clipy recording can now be Public, Restricted, or Private. Restricted lets you invite up to 10 specific email addresses, or allow anyone on one or more email domains, or both. Locked-out viewers see a clean request-access screen; the owner approves from the same share panel in one click. No password fields, no "disable download" theater — just an identity-based gate that actually works.

This was the missing piece for anyone sharing recordings inside a customer call, a hiring loop, a board update, or anything else that's public-with-the-link was too loose for.

The three tiers

Public

The default on every existing video and every new recording. Anyone with the link watches — no sign-in, no extra steps. Nothing changes for your current share URLs.

Restricted

Sharing scoped to people you choose. Inside Restricted, you can use either or both of:

  • Specific people — add up to 10 email addresses. Each one gets an invite email with a sign-in CTA. Viewers must sign in with that exact email to watch.
  • Email domains — add one or more domains like kotasara.com. Anyone whose email ends with that domain can watch, after they sign in.

Use email invites for one-off recipients (a customer, a candidate, a single stakeholder). Use a domain for team-wide visibility ("anyone with a @kotasara.com account can watch") so you don't have to re-invite everyone every time you record.

Private

Only you can watch. Useful for drafts, internal reference clips, or recordings you're holding for later release. Anyone else who has the link lands on the request-access screen.

Request access works on every non-public video

The biggest annoyance in older Loom-style sharing was the dead-end. If your link landed with the wrong person, they were stuck. Clipy now ships the obvious fix:

  • Viewer hits a video they can't watch — Restricted-no-match, Private, or signed-out.
  • They get a clean "Request access" card — sign in with Google if they haven't already, optional one-line note, hit the button.
  • You get an email plus a pending-requests panel on your video's share modal.
  • You approve → they're added to the access list, get a "you're in" email, and the video unlocks the next time they open the link. You reject → nothing happens.

Requests are rate-limited to one per (video, email) per 24 hours, so a forwarded link can't flood your inbox. The 10-recipient cap applies to approvals too — if you're at 10, removing someone first is a deliberate step.

Why no password, and no "disable download"

Two features we explicitly didn't build, and don't plan to. Worth saying out loud:

  • Password protection. Single shared passwords leak the second one person forwards an email. They're security theater dressed up as a feature. Identity-based access is strictly better — you know who watched, not just "someone with the password."
  • Disable download / right-click block. Every "disable download" on the market is an illusion: anyone with browser devtools, a screen recorder, or a phone camera can capture the video. We'd rather you understand that and gate who can see the URL in the first place than ship a button that pretends to do something it can't.

Where this sits next to Loom, Vimeo, Drive, Stream

Loom and Vimeo both gate per-recipient invites and domain allowlists behind their workspace plans — you can't share with three specific emails without buying seats. Vidyard does the same. Google Drive ships specific-people sharing but Drive isn't a screen recorder; you have to upload an MP4 and lose every Clipy player feature (transcript, summary, jump-by-section, OG card on Slack). Microsoft Stream has the most elegant domain control of the bunch but requires a Microsoft 365 tenant — useless if your team isn't already on it.

Clipy ships per-recipient invites, domain allowlists, and request-access on the free tier, on every recording, with no workspace setup. That's the wedge.

How to turn it on

  1. Open any of your recordings on clipy.online/videos.
  2. In the Share card, click Manage next to "Anyone with the link."
  3. Pick Public, Restricted, or Private.
  4. For Restricted: add emails, domains, or both. Hit Save. Invites go out as you save.

Existing recordings stay Public — we didn't silently flip anything — so your old share links keep working. Switch any of them whenever you need to.

What we want to hear

Edge cases. Anyone trying to use this for a context we haven't thought through — classroom sharing, customer-call libraries, hiring loops with NDAs — we want the report. Email support@clipy.online or open the in-app feedback form. The 24-hour fix guarantee applies.

If you tried Clipy before this shipped and bounced because there was no way to keep a recording inside one team, the door is open again. Same recorder, same free tier — with the gate you needed.