How do I view backup clips?

Viewing Clip Backup from a USB drive

Clip Backup occurs when you insert a USB drive into your Sync Module 2 and you have one of the following:

  • a Blink Subscription 
  • a Blink Subscription trial
  • your Blink account was created on or before April 15th, 2020

The Clip Backup feature is available for the Wired Outdoor 4, Floodlight Camera, Video Doorbell, Outdoor and Indoor (3rd Gen), and the Mini. Learn more about Blink Subscription Plans.

Once every 24 hours, a backup of your Cloud Storage clips are saved to the storage device plugged into your Sync Module. To access the backup files, the USB storage device must be removed from the Sync Module 2 and inserted into a computer or similar device. 

Note: Backup clips are not viewable from the Blink app.

Delete

Warning - if your drive is full

When your USB flash drive has less than 375MB of storage space, Local Storage clips and backup clips are no longer saved. To free up space, delete clips, format your USB drive, or insert a new USB drive into the Sync Module.

Safely Eject the USB

  1. First, note the date and time of the Backup completed.to be sure the clip backups you want to view are on the USB storage device. Since the backup occurs once per day, it is possible that the files you want are not yet saved to USB
  2.  From the Local Storage screen, tap Safe Eject and wait to receive the "USB Disconnected" message and the USB icon changes to inactive (not green) as shown below.

  3. You can now remove your USB storage device from the Sync Module 2, and insert it into a computer or similar device to view the files. If you reinsert the USB storage device into the Sync Module 2, backups resume and new, unsaved files are added to the blink_backups directory.
    disconnect usb message

How to view Backup Clips

  1. Insert your USB drive into a computer and access the flash drive as you normally would.
  2. Backup clips are found on the USB drive in the blink_backup folder. The subfolders within this folder correspond to the date when the clips were saved. 

    Example

    blink_backup - This folder contains backup clips from eligible cameras.

    20-09 - This folder indicates a two digit year 20 for 2020, and two-digit month 09 for September.

    01-20-21-38_Outdoor_1234567.mp4 - File name is generated using this convention: [Day of month] - [Hour (in 24-hour format)] - [Minutes] - [Seconds] _ [camera-name] _ [camera UID].mp4

    • Note: The timestamp used in the file name is in UTC.

  3. Select the clip you want to view and double-click to open the file. Clips are viewed using any media player that supports the common MP4 format, such as VLC, Windows Media Player, or QuickTime Player.

     

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