Tesla Dashcam & Sentry Mode Footage Recovery: Getting Clips Back From a Corrupted USB

Tesla writes Dashcam and Sentry Mode clips as standard MP4 files to a FAT32/exFAT USB drive, stored in TeslaCam/SavedClips and TeslaCam/SentryClips. When clips go missing, the drive corrupts, or the touchscreen shows 'USB drive not usable,' the footage is recoverable far more often than people expect — provided you stop the car from recording over it. This guide covers the immediate steps after an incident, how Tesla stores the four camera angles, computer-side file-carving recovery, and the critical mistake of reformatting the drive in the car.

Key Topics Covered

• Stopping continued recording from overwriting clips
• TeslaCam RecentClips vs SavedClips vs SentryClips layout
• Recovering MP4 files on a computer with a card reader
• Declining the touchscreen's format prompt
• Why partial multi-camera recovery is normal
• No cloud backup — the USB is the only copy