How Do I View Clip Backups?

If the available storage on your USB drive falls below 375 MB, it will no longer be able to save Local Storage clips and Clip Backups. To free up space, delete existing clips, format the USB drive or insert a new USB drive into the Sync Module.

When you connect a USB drive to a Sync Module 2 and have an active Blink Subscription Plan or trial, Clip Backup* is automatically enabled, saving a daily backup of your Cloud Storage clips to the USB drive once every 24 hours.

*Available for Mini, Mini 2, Outdoor 4, Wired Floodlight, Video Doorbell, Indoor and Outdoor (3rd Gen).

Legacy Blink devices like XT, XT2 and Indoor (1st Gen) don’t support Local Storage or Clip Backup. These cameras receive 7,200 seconds of Cloud Storage per Sync Module with the oldest clips deleted when the limit is reached. Learn more about available storage options.

Verifying Clip Backup Status

Follow the steps below to verify the status of Clip Backups, including whether the most recent backup was successful or failed and which devices were included:

  1. From the Home screen, scroll to the bottom of the camera thumbnail list and tap the Sync Module status bar.
  2. Tap Local Storage.
  3. Tap Local Backup of Cloud Storage.

Note: Clip Backups cannot be viewed directly from the Blink app. To view Clip Backups, you’ll need to access them from a computer. For more information, refer to the section below.

Viewing Clip Backups from a Computer

To prevent potential data loss, it is recommended to safely eject your USB drive before removing it from the Sync Module.

To safely eject your USB drive: 

  1. From the Home screen, scroll to the bottom of the camera thumbnail list and tap the Sync Module status bar.
  2. Tap Local Storage.
  3. Tap Safely Eject.

To access and view Clip Backups from a computer:

  1. After safely ejecting the USB drive, insert it into your computer.
  2. Locate the blink_backup folder on the USB drive. Inside this folder, you’ll find subfolders organised by year and month. For example, 20-09 indicates clips saved in September 2020.
  3. Double-click any clip in the subfolder to play it. Clips can be viewed using any media player that supports the MP4 format, such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player or VLC media player.

File names are structured in the following format, as shown in this example: 01-20-21-38_Outdoor_1234567.mp4

This format includes:

  • 01 - Day of the month
  • 20 - Hour
  • 21 - Minutes
  • 38 - Seconds
  • Outdoor - Camera name
  • 1234567 - Unique camera ID

Timestamps are in Universal Time (UTC).


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