# How long do you keep temporary files around?

You may have noticed that Transloadit also uses `tmp-*.transloadit.net` locations for some files. This is to pass around files between uploading and encoding machines, and for debugging.

We delete these files automatically after 24 hours, so please do not rely on them otherwise.

Instead, download these temporary locations as soon as the Assembly is complete, or, even better, add an export Robot to your Templates so that files will be stored indefinitely in a place (S3, SFTP, etc) of your choosing and owning, as part of theAssembly execution.

###### Important

Usage Restrictions:

* Temporary storage is intended for **single-digit file retrieval only** (e.g., downloading once to your own storage)
* **Do NOT use temporary URLs to serve files to your end customers** or in production environments
* **Do NOT use temporary storage as a CDN** - this violates our [Terms of Service](/legal/terms-of-service/)
* Files accessed more than 10 times or consuming excessive bandwidth violate our Terms of Service

If you need to serve files to customers, you **must** use an export Robot to save files to your own storage (S3, CDN, etc.) and serve them from there.

Also see:

* [Can you delete temporary files sooner?](/docs/faq/temporary-purge-sooner.md)