How to recover deleted DJI drone footage on a Mac
Short answer
To recover deleted DJI drone footage, don’t fly again — new recordings can overwrite the clips. Check the free copy first: the DJI Fly (or DJI GO) app on your phone keeps a video cache, a lower-resolution copy of footage streamed during flight, that’s often still there. For the full-quality originals, take the microSD out of the drone, connect it to your Mac with a reader, and scan it read-only. Deleted footage is usually recoverable if the card hasn’t been written to since.
A missed shot from a drone stings twice, because you can’t just walk back and film it again. But when you set out to recover deleted DJI drone footage, you often have two shots at it: a lower-res copy your phone quietly saved during the flight, and the full-quality original that’s usually still sitting on the drone’s microSD (the small memory card from your drone or camera). This guide takes the free phone check first, then the read-only card scan for the best copy — and it’s honest about what each one can and can’t give you back.
Step 1: stop flying and recording
The instant you realise footage is missing, land and stop recording. Every new clip you capture can write over the deleted footage on the microSD, and that’s what turns a recoverable clip into a gone one. Power the drone down and leave the card alone until you’ve worked through the steps below on your Mac.
Free check: the DJI app video cache on your phone
This is the step most people skip, and it’s often the quickest win. While you fly, the DJI Fly app (or DJI GO on older aircraft) streams a live view to your phone or tablet — and it saves that stream as a video cache on the device. That cache frequently survives even after the clip on the card is deleted, because it’s stored separately on the phone and isn’t touched when you delete footage from the drone. It won’t be there for every flight — the app caches recent sessions rather than everything you’ve ever shot — but it’s fast to check and often holds exactly the flight you’re after.
- Open the DJI Fly (or DJI GO / DJI GO 4) app on the phone or tablet you flew with.
- Go to your profile or the media/album section and look for cached footage.
- In the app settings, check the video cache options — some let you export or save the cached clips to your camera roll.
- Save anything you find to your phone, then to your Mac.
The cache is a lower-resolution, compressed copy of what you saw on the screen — not the full-quality footage from the card. It’s a great fallback, but if you want the best version, still recover the microSD as described below.
Recover the full-quality clips from the microSD
The originals live on the drone’s microSD, so that’s where the best copy comes from.
- Power the drone off and remove the microSD from its slot (on some models it’s under the gimbal or beside the battery).
- Put it in a microSD-to-SD adapter or a USB microSD reader.
- Connect the reader to your Mac. The card should show up in Finder and Disk Utility.
- Don’t copy anything onto the card — you only want to read from it.
If the card won’t mount, work through SD card not showing up on Mac before scanning.
A note on DJI internal storage
Some DJI models — certain Mini, Air and Mavic aircraft — include a small amount of internal storage alongside the microSD slot, which the drone uses when no card is inserted or when the card is full. If your footage may have recorded to internal storage, you can sometimes reach it by connecting the drone directly to your Mac over USB, where it mounts like a camera.
This varies a lot by model, so check DJI’s product page or support for your specific drone to confirm whether it has internal storage and how to access it. If it mounts on your Mac, you can scan it the same way you’d scan the card.
Recover the footage with Shotback
Once you’ve grabbed any cache copies and the card (or internal storage) mounts read-only, Shotback can scan it and rebuild the deleted clips from the raw data still there. It’s read-only, so scanning can’t harm the card, and scanning and previewing are free — you only pay to save what you choose.
- Open Shotback and pick the DJI microSD as the source to scan.
- Run a full scan and let it finish — video takes longer than photos.
- Preview the clips it recovers, so you can see what’s really there before you decide.
- Select the footage you want and save it to a different drive — never back onto the card you’re recovering from.
Save recovered clips to another disk, such as your Mac or a separate external drive. Writing them back onto the same microSD can overwrite footage you haven’t rescued yet.
If you’d rather use a free command-line tool, PhotoRec is a solid open-source option that runs on the Mac. It’s free and capable, but it has no preview — it carves everything it finds into a folder for you to sort through afterwards, with no way to see a clip first. For anyone comfortable in Terminal, it’s well worth knowing about.
Which copy should you trust?
If both the app cache and a card scan turn up the same flight, keep the card version — it’s the full-quality original. The cache copy is lower resolution, so treat it as your backup for anything the card can’t return. And because recovered files lose their original names and folders, don’t expect DJI’s original numbering back: Shotback renames recovered clips by date and camera so you can sort them, which is the norm for any recovery tool.
If a clip was cut off mid-flight — battery warning, signal loss, a hard landing — the file may be incomplete, because the drone never finished writing it. A scan recovers whatever made it onto the card, but a partial clip may not play cleanly, and recovery tools bring footage back as-is rather than repairing it.
For related situations, see recovering deleted GoPro videos, deleted photos from an SD card, or RAW photos from a memory card. You can also start from the Shotback home page to find the right guide for your device.
Frequently asked questions
Where does DJI store a copy of my footage besides the card?
The DJI Fly or DJI GO app keeps a "video cache" on your phone or tablet — a lower-resolution copy of the footage that was streamed to the screen during flight. It's often still there after the card clip is gone, so check the phone first.
Is the DJI app cache the same quality as the card footage?
No. The cache is a compressed, lower-resolution version of what you saw on the controller screen. The full-quality original lives on the drone's microSD, so use the cache as a fallback and recover the card for the best copy.
Can I recover footage deleted straight from the drone's card?
Usually yes, if you stop flying right away. Deleting a clip just frees the space on the microSD — the data stays until new footage overwrites it. Take the card out and scan it read-only.
Does my DJI drone have internal storage too?
Some models do, alongside the microSD slot. If yours has internal storage, you may be able to reach it by connecting the drone to your Mac over USB — but this varies by model, so check DJI's page for your specific drone.
Will recovered drone clips keep their original names?
No. Recovered videos lose their original filenames and folders. Shotback renames them by date and camera so you can sort through them after the scan.
Is it free to see whether my drone footage can be recovered?
Yes. Shotback scans and previews for free, so you can confirm which clips are recoverable before paying. You only pay to save the ones you want to keep.