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Recording

Recordings can be enabled and are stored at /media/frigate/recordings. The folder structure for the recordings is YYYY-MM-DD/HH/<camera_name>/MM.SS.mp4 in UTC time. These recordings are written directly from your camera stream without re-encoding. Each camera supports a configurable retention policy. Frigate chooses the largest matching retention value between the recording retention and the tracked object retention when determining if a recording should be removed.

New recording segments are written from the camera stream to cache, they are only moved to disk if they match the setup recording retention policy.

H265 recordings can be viewed in Chrome 108+, Edge and Safari only. All other browsers require recordings to be encoded with H264.

Common recording configurations​

Most conservative: Ensure all video is saved​

For users deploying Frigate in environments where it is important to have contiguous video stored even if there was no detectable motion, the following configuration will store all video for 3 days. After 3 days, only video containing motion will be saved for 7 days. After 7 days, only video containing motion and overlapping with alerts or detections will be retained until 30 days have passed.

Navigate to Settings→Global configuration→Recording.

  • Set Enable recording to on
  • Set Continuous retention > Retention days to 3
  • Set Motion retention > Retention days to 7
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention days to 30
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention mode to all
  • Set Detection retention > Event retention > Retention days to 30
  • Set Detection retention > Event retention > Retention mode to all

Reduced storage: Only saving video when motion is detected​

To reduce storage requirements, configure recording to only retain video where motion or activity was detected.

Navigate to Settings→Global configuration→Recording.

  • Set Enable recording to on
  • Set Motion retention > Retention days to 3
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention days to 30
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention mode to motion
  • Set Detection retention > Event retention > Retention days to 30
  • Set Detection retention > Event retention > Retention mode to motion

Minimum: Alerts only​

If you only want to retain video that occurs during activity caused by tracked object(s), this configuration will discard video unless an alert is ongoing.

Navigate to Settings→Global configuration→Recording.

  • Set Enable recording to on
  • Set Continuous retention > Retention days to 0
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention days to 30
  • Set Alert retention > Event retention > Retention mode to motion

Will Frigate delete old recordings if my storage runs out?​

As of Frigate 0.12 if there is less than an hour left of storage, the oldest 2 hours of recordings will be deleted.

Configuring Recording Retention​

Frigate supports both continuous and tracked object based recordings with separate retention modes and retention periods.

tip

Retention configs support decimals meaning they can be configured to retain 0.5 days, for example.

Continuous and Motion Recording​

The number of days to retain continuous and motion recordings can be configured. By default, continuous recording is disabled.

Navigate to Settings→Global configuration→Recording.

FieldDescription
Enable recordingEnable or disable recording for all cameras
Continuous retention > Retention daysNumber of days to keep continuous recordings
Motion retention > Retention daysNumber of days to keep motion recordings

Continuous recording supports different retention modes which are described below.

Object Recording​

The number of days to retain recordings for review items can be specified for items classified as alerts as well as tracked objects.

Navigate to Settings→Global configuration→Recording.

FieldDescription
Enable recordingEnable or disable recording for all cameras
Alert retention > Event retention > Retention daysNumber of days to keep alert recordings
Detection retention > Event retention > Retention daysNumber of days to keep detection recordings

This configuration will retain recording segments that overlap with alerts and detections for 10 days. Because multiple tracked objects can reference the same recording segments, this avoids storing duplicate footage for overlapping tracked objects and reduces overall storage needs.

Can I have "continuous" recordings, but only at certain times?​

Using Frigate UI, Home Assistant, or MQTT, cameras can be automated to only record in certain situations or at certain times.

How do I export recordings?​

Footage can be exported from Frigate by right-clicking (desktop) or long pressing (mobile) on a review item in the Review pane or by clicking the Export button in the History view. Exported footage is then organized and searchable through the Export view, accessible from the main navigation bar.

Time-lapse export​

Time lapse exporting is available only via the HTTP API.

When exporting a time-lapse the default speed-up is 25x with 30 FPS. This means that every 25 seconds of (real-time) recording is condensed into 1 second of time-lapse video (always without audio) with a smoothness of 30 FPS.

To configure the speed-up factor, the frame rate and further custom settings, use the timelapse_args parameter. The below configuration example would change the time-lapse speed to 60x (for fitting 1 hour of recording into 1 minute of time-lapse) with 25 FPS:

record:
  enabled: True
  export:
    timelapse_args: "-vf setpts=PTS/60 -r 25"
tip

When using hwaccel_args, hardware encoding is used for timelapse generation. This setting can be overridden for a specific camera (e.g., when camera resolution exceeds hardware encoder limits); set the camera-level export hwaccel_args with the appropriate settings. Using an unrecognized value or empty string will fall back to software encoding (libx264).

tip

The encoder determines its own behavior so the resulting file size may be undesirably large. To reduce the output file size the ffmpeg parameter -qp n can be utilized (where n stands for the value of the quantisation parameter). The value can be adjusted to get an acceptable tradeoff between quality and file size for the given scenario.

Apple Compatibility with H.265 Streams​

Apple devices running the Safari browser may fail to playback h.265 recordings. The apple compatibility option should be used to ensure seamless playback on Apple devices.

Syncing Media Files With Disk​

Media files (event snapshots, event thumbnails, review thumbnails, previews, exports, and recordings) can become orphaned when database entries are deleted but the corresponding files remain on disk.

Normal operation may leave small numbers of orphaned files until Frigate's scheduled cleanup, but crashes, configuration changes, or upgrades may cause more orphaned files that Frigate does not clean up. This feature checks the file system for media files and removes any that are not referenced in the database.

The Maintenance pane in the Frigate UI or an API endpoint POST /api/media/sync can be used to trigger a media sync. When using the API, a job ID is returned and the operation continues on the server. Status can be checked with the /api/media/sync/status/{job_id} endpoint.

Setting verbose: true writes a detailed report of every orphaned file and database entry to /config/media_sync/<job_id>.txt. For recordings, the report separates orphaned database entries (DB records whose files are missing from disk) from orphaned files (files on disk with no corresponding database record).

warning

This operation uses considerable CPU resources and includes a safety threshold that aborts if more than 50% of files would be deleted. Only run when necessary. If you set force: true the safety threshold will be bypassed; do not use force unless you are certain the deletions are intended.