Ignore the reports that GoPro’s revenue is decreasing this year, it is still one of the most versatile and popular action cameras so far. Shooting GoPro videos is pretty common these days, and the chances to lose a GoPro footage also grow. Maybe you deleted them by a mistake or the videos were gone without your notice. Don’t worry, though, because we have the solutions to recover a deleted GoPro video on your Mac.
In this article, we will also examine the reasons why this happens, and explain some basics about GoPro videos recovery.
To free up space on GoPro sd card for new footage, we may need to delete some files from time to time, but where does the deleted GoPro video go?
Well, it depends on where you delete the video from.
Yes, we can.
According to part 1, though the GoPro videos will be permanently deleted from your device, that doesn’t mean the files are gone forever, the system of the device just deletes the directories of those files and marks the space as available to store new footage, once there is new video added, the deleted one will be overwritten now or later. Also, if you just deleted the files in your GoPro account on the website, it is even easier to get it back by restoring from the recently deleted folder.
Therefore, as long as we figure out where did these deleted GoPro videos go and stop adding new videos or files to the device, we will be able to get them back.
While most people, at the very beginning, will pin their hopes on finding back the deleted GoPro footage from recently deleted folder like we always do to restore our photos on an iPhone or Android phone, however, it is not that easy and lucky. Very often, the videos are just permanently deleted and they are no where on your device. And this is exactly where data recovery tools stand out, they offer a straightforward and highly successful way to restore the deleted GoPro videos.
To recover deleted GoPro videos, consider Cisdem Data Recovery, one of the best video recovery software for Mac users. It can be run on macOS, Windows, compatible with macOS 15 Sequoia, 14 Sonoma and earlier, helps users to restore different types of files from both internal and external storage device on Mac.
Cisdem Data Recovery offers every feature an user might expect. The recovery is split into 4 modes: Mac internal/external hard disk, SD Card, iCloud and Unbootable Mac, which covers virtually all data loss situations. Meanwhile, it can find a large selection of file formats, more than 200 types including videos, audio, photos, documents, emails, bookmarks, archives. In addition, it has extra features like disk backup and bootable macOS installer creation.
Not only recovers GoPro MP4 videos, Cisdem also supports recovering mOV, M4V, WMV, FLV, RM, MKV and so on, even restores photos from different brands of cameras. No matter the videos are recently deleted or have been deleted for some time, Cisdem is able to find and recover. It is also robust and smart, listing the lost videos with original file name, also allowing users to preview the videos with built in video player, so you don’t have to recover all the found videos and search for the wanted one. Video repair is the tool makes Cisdem outperform others, a GoPro video might be easily corrupted and cannot be opened, or it is quite common that a recovered video is not playable. With Cisdem Video Repair, we can easily drag and drop the videos for batch repair, just in a several seconds or minutes.
Free Download macOS 10.9 or later 
Video recovery is not that intimidating these days, especially if you have a backup or with proper tools. According to where and how you deleted the GoPro video on your Mac, there are additional 4 solutions to get them back. Most of them are free to use.
In Feb 6th, 2024, GoPro released the version of Quik for macOS desktop, it allows users to manage, edit and backup GoPro videos with ease. If you have a copy of the deleted GoPri video in Quik and disabled the Auto Cloud Backup before you deleted the video on your GoPro camera, you just need to open this app and re-download the copy to your Mac again.
In the case that you deleted the videos in your GoPro account, you should log into GoPro and check if they are still in the Recently Deleted folder.
Data backup is always the number one priority for IT software or solutions, it saves us from the disaster caused by data loss, this is also the reason why an operating system builds in the backup and restore feature, for example, Time Machine is available for Mac users. Also, there are a lot of cloud storage services offer convenient back up and recovery process. If you’ve backed up the GoPro videos, it will be much easier to get them back onto your Mac.
GoPro cameras don’t have internal memory, which means all the GoPro footage are stored onto an external SD Card. If you’ve deleted a GoPro video from the SD Card, don’t worry, some of the SD Card suppliers have their own SD Card data recovery software, such as SanDisk.
If you are using SanDisk SD card on your GoPro device, SanDisk RescuePro Deluxe is a good alternative to recover the deleted files. It is not free, but worth a try. This app is exclusively designed to recover deleted files from SanDisk and other brands of digital storage media, no matter you’ve deleted a video, a photo, even other documents.
GoPro the device itself doesn’t have a recently deleted folder, because whenever you tap the delete button on the camera, the files will be permanently deleted, they won’t be moved to a trash bin nor allow for recovery within 30 days or 60 days.
But if use GoPro website to manage your footage across your devices in one place, then yes, there is a recently deleted folder, all the deleted GoPro videos will be moved to this location and you can put back whenever as you like.
Beside Quik, there are 2 additional ways to find and view a GoPro video on your Mac.
Either connect the SD card to your Mac via a card reader, the card will be showed up on the desktop, or you can find it from the Finder’s sidebar. Double click on the card, you will be able to find and view the videos.
Or you can connect the camera to your Mac via USB cable, then open Image Capture to import the videos without downloading to your Mac, and find or view them at your convenience.
A GoPro footage can be gone for different reasons, it might be a human error, a hardware malfunction or software glitch, here we list some common reasons:
A GoPro video can be extremely important because every moment that captured by the camera cannot be replicated, so, save a copy for those videos in advance. If a GoPro footage is gone or deleted, always check out the backup first, if pitiful you don’t have one, give Cisdem a try.
Connie Yu has been a columnist in the field of data recovery since 2011. She studied a lot of data loss situations and tested repeatedly to find a feasible solution tailored for each case. And her solutions are always updated to fix problems from the newest systems, devices and apps.
