Downloaded videos deleted?

[Chellobello]

So I've had my cameras since November and have downloaded various videos to my phone (galaxy 😎 to keep. I was having a problem where the app kept making me log in and the advice here was to uninstall and reinstall. I did that and now all my downloaded videos were deleted off my phone! I'm sure that's it because I test downloaded two videos, left one in downloads and put one in a folder titled "arlo", redeleted the app and both those videos deleted as well. Can I not save them on my phone? Was I warned about this and missed it? I'm super not happy to have lost 5 months of saved videos.

[JamesC]

Chellobello,

Very rarely would you need to uninstall the Arlo Mobile App for a fix. All app updates should automatically download and install without issue.

In the event you would need to uninstall the app, I would recommend backing up any data you wish to preserve prior to the uninstall.

JamesC

[Chellobello]

Unfortunately the app was experiencing problems that were resolved by reinstalling so in this case it was necessary.

I had downloaded the videos to my phone, in a designated folder. I was quite surprised the app deleted those videos. I was never given notice this would happen. Are you saying I need to backup to a second location where the app doesn't have permissions? How can I be sure the next time I connect my phone to that second location they aren't deleted then?

I am not comfortable with the fact that the app decided to delete videos on its own, even videos I had retitled and moved folders. This means that if I ever discontinue use of the cameras or move houses and no longer have them, I need to remember that this app will delete things I purposefully saved outside of the app. That is either poor design or malicious with the intent to punish me for no longer using the product. Both of those scenarios make me very upset considering the money this system costs.

[pc2k17]

Hook a USB thumb drive into the arlo base, enable it in the app, and all your videos are automatically saved to the USB thumb drive. This way you always have a backup of all videos. They will only start to delete off the USB thumb drive if/when it gets full. Also, even when your internet is down, videos will still save to the USB drive. And if you hook the arlo base to a UPS backup battery, you'll still get saved videos even if your power goes out. 

Why your saved videos on your phone dissapeared when you uninstalled I'm not sure, but my guess it the videos were still actually in an arlo program folder and the "saved" ones were just "pointers" to the real location. Idk, just a guess as I never downloaded a video because my USB drive has them all.