UniFi Protect. Find the footage, export it properly.

Two ways to find footage

• The timeline (the play icon in Protect’s left menu) shows recordings. Pick a camera, pick a time, scrub.
• Find Anything (the search icon) is the search. Ask for “person”, “vehicle”, a licence plate, or a sound, and it lists every match. This is almost always faster.

Reading the timeline

• The bar along the bottom is time. Drag it to move. Pinch or scroll to zoom in and out.
• Marks on the bar are detections: a person, a car, an animal, a package. Click one to jump straight to it.
• If your cameras record only when something happens, the timeline has gaps. That is normal. If they record all the time, the bar is solid and the marks show where something was detected.
• On the phone, swipe along the scrubber to preview, and press and hold to change the playback speed.

Tip: if you know roughly when it happened, start with Find Anything filtered to that camera and that day. Then open the hit in Playback to see what came before and after.

Export a clip

Quick download (to send to a neighbour, or keep for yourself):

• Computer: select the clip in Playback or Find Anything, then click Download.
• Phone: tap Share, then Export clip.

You get a normal video file that plays on any computer or phone.

Export for police or insurance

Do it properly the first time. A clean, original file is what they want.

1. In Playback or Find Anything, choose Add to Case.
2. Trim to the part that matters, plus a minute either side.
3. Create a case (name it with the date and what happened) and add a short note for each clip: which camera, what it shows.
4. Open Case Manager, open the case, and click Download.

You get a zip with every clip and a PDF summary of your notes. Clips saved to a case are kept past your normal recording window, so they will not be overwritten while you wait on a claim.

Rules for evidence

• Hand over the original file. Do not trim, crop, or re-save it in another app. That can make it look tampered with.
• Keep a copy yourself.
• If your system supports Evidence Trust (newer versions of Protect, under Settings > Evidence Trust), turn it on now, before you ever need it. It stamps every export so anyone can prove it has not been edited. Ask us if you are not sure your cameras support it.