In this post I will describe how I’ve archived all of my 610 VRChat avatars to an offline storage, and how you may replicate the steps.
This will require some software development knowledge to follow.
https://large.docs.cdn.hai-vr.dev/assets/docs/gGIzUVJ8en.mp4
An avatar archive browser, fully working from offline data gathered using the method described below.
Let’s set some expectations here.
The objective of building your own archive in this way is so that you can preserve a trace of your avatar history in 10 years’ time, for when VRChat may have drastically changed to the point your old avatars may become unavailable to be loaded in-client, or for when the VRChat platform itself will no longer be accessible for whatever reason.
Personally, I’m doing this because my personal interest in VRChat content creation has drastically diminished throughout this year (2025) in favor of general Unity development, and any step that makes it easier for me to detach myself from the platform is a good step. That’s why I made a cross-application offline backup of my VRChat friends list earlier this year. By making an offline archive of my content, I have one less tie to this platform.
Avatars that are archived in this way should not be reuploaded to the VRChat platform.
You will be able to load most of those avatars in the Unity Editor using the asset bundle API, but for the most part you won’t be able to do much with them without additional development work, which is completely outside the scope of this document.
In this sense, you are building an archive of your own content for your own posterity; you are not building a backup of your content. By definition, a backup can be restored from: You may not be able to restore your account with this alone.
A true backup involves preserving your original Unity projects, which is not what this write up will describe.
When this topic comes up, someone’s eventually gonna bring up the terms of service. Here’s a section about that.
First of all, you are downloading avatars that you have uploaded. You gave VRChat a license to use your content when you uploaded your avatar, but it’s still your content. You’re not downloading somebody else’s content. Think of it as downloading your own photos off Google Drive.
Secondly, [Section 14 of the VRChat Terms of Service](https://hello.vrchat.com/legal#:~:text=You should retain copies of any User Content you Post so that you have permanent copies if the Platform is modified in such a way that you lose access to User Content you Posted.) says this:
You should retain copies of any User Content you Post so that you have permanent copies if the Platform is modified in such a way that you lose access to User Content you Posted.