Drone and action-camera footage gets lost in three ways: the clip was deleted or the card was formatted, the card stopped working, or the recording was cut off by a dead battery or a crash and now won’t play. The first two are recovery problems. The video data is usually still on the microSD card, and a recovery app can find it. The third is a repair problem: the file is there, but its index was never written.
Whichever it is, the rule is the same. Stop recording on that card, take it out, and make a copy before anything else writes to it.
First steps
- Don’t fly or film with the card until you’ve recovered what you need. New clips are written over the old ones.
- Don’t format the card, in the drone, the camera, or the DJI or GoPro app.
- Copy everything that’s still visible on the card to your Mac, including
.LRF,.LRVand.SRTfiles. - If macOS offers to initialize the card, click Ignore.
If a clip was cut off by a dead battery or crash
MP4 files from DJI and GoPro cameras keep their index at the end of the file, written when you stop recording. If power is lost mid-recording, the index is missing and QuickTime can’t open the file, even though most of the footage is in it. Try these in order.
1. Let the camera finish the file
DJI’s manuals say to put the card back in the drone or Osmo camera, power it on and wait about 30 seconds to a minute; you don’t need to fly. The firmware finds the unfinished file and closes it. GoPro cameras show a repair icon when they find a broken file, and fix it when you press a button. This works often, but not always, and it writes to the card. Copy the card to your Mac first.
2. Rebuild the index on your Mac
If the camera can’t fix it, the file’s index can be rebuilt from another clip shot by the same camera with the same settings. Reco’s Fix a Video does this for free:
- Open Reco and choose Fix a Video.
- Drop in the clip that won’t play. Reco tells you whether its index is missing, which it can rebuild.
- Pick a pattern clip: one that plays, from the same drone or camera, recorded at the same resolution and frame rate. If you have none, record a few seconds with the same settings.
- Save the repaired copy. The original isn’t changed, and nothing is uploaded.
The last moment before the crash is often missing, because it was never written to the card. See fixing a corrupted MP4 or MOV for more on what repair can and can’t do.
If clips were deleted or the card was formatted
A normal format in the drone, camera or app only rewrites the card’s file list. The video data stays until it’s recorded over. With Reco, free for Mac:
- Put the microSD card in a reader on your Mac. If your drone stores footage internally and shows up on the Mac as a drive over USB, choose that instead.
- Choose the card and scan. A deep scan reads all of it, at the card’s own speed. You can pause, quit or unplug and carry on later.
- Review. Videos show a frame as they’re found, and you can play one before you recover it. Original names, such as
DJI_0001.MP4orGX010042.MP4, come back where the card still remembers them. - Recover to your Mac or another drive. Reco reads the card read-only and won’t save onto it.
When a found video has lost its index, Reco rebuilds it as it recovers, using other clips from the same camera that are still on the card. That works best when the card holds several clips shot with the same settings.
Long flights and split files
DJI drones split long recordings into files of about 4 GB. GoPro cameras split them into chapters (GX01…, GX02… with the same clip number); how big each chapter gets depends on the camera and the card. Each piece is its own video, so a battery cut usually affects only the last piece. Recover all of them and join them in your editor.
Low-resolution copies can save the shot
DJI drones and Osmo cameras record a small .LRF copy of each clip, and GoPro cameras a .LRV copy, at the same time as the full video. If the full clip can’t be recovered or repaired, its low-resolution copy may still be there. It won’t be full quality, but it can save a shot you can’t repeat.
What can’t be recovered
- Footage recorded over. If you flew again after formatting, the new clips took the old ones’ place on the card.
- A card that was fully erased, for example with an overwrite format on a computer.
- A card the Mac can’t see at all, not even in Disk Utility, or one that shows a tiny size such as 0 bytes. That’s a hardware fault for a data recovery lab. If the card is there but unreliable, use Copy first and scan the copy.
So it doesn’t happen again
- Stop recording before you land, and before the battery warning turns critical.
- Copy cards to your Mac after every flight or session, before you format them.
- Use a card from a known brand, bought from a trusted seller: fake cards report more space than they have and lose footage.
Questions
Why won’t my DJI video play after the battery died or the drone crashed?
The drone writes the video’s index when recording stops. If power is cut first, the file has its picture and sound but no index, so the Mac can’t open it. Put the card back in the drone and power it on for about a minute first; DJI firmware often finishes the file itself. If not, the index can be rebuilt with a clip from the same drone.
Can I recover DJI footage after formatting the microSD card?
Usually, after a normal format, as long as you haven’t flown and recorded on the card since. Formatting rewrites the card’s file list, not the video data. Scan the card with a recovery app and save the files to your Mac.
What are .LRF and .LRV files?
Low-resolution copies of each clip that DJI (.LRF) and GoPro (.LRV) cameras record at the same time, for quick previews. If the full clip can’t be saved, its low-resolution copy may still be watchable.
Is it safe to let my GoPro repair a corrupted file?
It often works, but the camera writes to the card while it repairs. Copy the card to your Mac first, so you still have the original if the repair fails.