Find and export UniFi Protect footage

Goal and requirements

Produce a playable copy of an event with enough surrounding context to understand it. This example uses a staged delivery at Front Entry at 14:10. Replace that time with your own known event. You need permission to view and export the camera's recordings, available footage and enough free storage on the computer receiving the export.

Record the site, camera, date, local timezone and approximate event time before searching. Distinguish the time someone reported the incident from the time the incident occurred. This simple preparation prevents a long search in the wrong time window.

Locate the event

  1. Open the correct site. Enter Protect through the relevant console and check the camera name and live view. For sites with similarly named cameras, use a physical landmark to confirm the view. Check that the application's displayed time matches the intended local time.
  2. Start with Playback. Select Front Entry, choose the date and navigate to approximately 14:10. Begin a little earlier, then move forward until the event appears. If the time is uncertain, search a broader interval before narrowing it. A missing detection label does not establish that continuously recorded video is missing.
  3. Use detections to narrow the search. In Find Anything, choose the camera, date range and a supported object category such as person. Open candidate results and confirm them visually. Available search categories depend on the camera and AI hardware. Treat classification as a search aid that still needs review. [1]
  4. Set the clip boundaries. Include the approach, the main activity and the departure. For the staged example, a first attempt might cover 14:09:30 to 14:11:00. Those times are an exercise, not a universal clip length. Review the proposed start and end before exporting, and extend them when a relevant action begins outside the selection.

Export and validate

  1. Download the clip. In the web interface, use the Download control in Playback or Find Anything. In the mobile app, use Share › Export clip. Follow the displayed selection and quality options in your application version, then wait for the operation to finish. Keep the source recording until the downloaded copy has been checked. [2]
  2. Open the actual file. Play it in a local video player. Check the first, middle and last sections, the duration, camera view and any audio that should be present. Verify that a thumbnail or browser preview has not been mistaken for the downloaded video. If the file is incomplete, export a shorter interval and repeat the check.
  3. Keep an orderly original. Store the untouched export in a folder with an incident reference. A useful filename records site, camera and local date and time. Keep any annotated, cropped or compressed sharing copy separately. Record who exported it, when, and which interval it covers. This provides a practical history of your own handling.
  4. Copy it to the intended destination. Use the authorised storage location and reopen the copied file there. A successful export on one laptop does not establish that another person can access the intended copy. Protect also offers off-site archiving destinations configured under Settings › Off-Site Archiving; set those up as a separate retention workflow. [2]

Combine several cameras

For an event spanning Front Entry and Driveway, locate each relevant interval and use Add to Case. Create a case with a clear name, add factual descriptions and include each clip. In Case Manager, inspect the sequence and download the case. Ubiquiti documents a ZIP containing the selected videos and a descriptive PDF. Extract it and verify each file. [3]

Keep the case open until its contents have been reviewed. Closing a case prevents further edits, and removing a case can delete its associated footage when that footage is already outside normal retention. A case stored on the recorder should not be your sole copy of material that must survive loss of that recorder. [3]

Optional authenticity verification

Protect 7.2 and later supports site enrolment through Settings › Evidence Trust › Enroll in Evidence. Ubiquiti documents verification of exports from an enrolled system at evidence.ui.com. If your installation uses this feature, confirm enrolment and follow the official verification process for the exported file. Do not assume that enabling it today retroactively authenticates every earlier recording. [4]

Troubleshooting and recovery

If the event is absent, check the date, timezone, camera, recording mode, recording schedule and whether that period has expired. Search Playback when Find Anything has no result. If an export fails, try a shorter interval, check free space and use a stable local connection where practical.

Finish by asking another authorised person to open the delivered file and identify the event. This checks the outcome that matters: the relevant recording exists outside the recorder and can be understood by its intended recipient.

Sources

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