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Alarms storage settings
Camera stores detected motions as pictures or videos on several places by default. This article describes where the alarms are stored and how change it.
Camera storage
All recorded alarms are stored in the camera itself. When a motion is detected, the camera tries to store the alarm on the SD card if it is present and if it is not, app stores the alarm to the internal memory of the phone. Storing alarms to the camera is always turned on and cannot be disabled.
When camera is configured to store alarms as pictures (this is the default settings), camera stores two versions of the picture - picture in a full resolution and the same picture in a low resolution.
The real location of the alarms in the phone's file system is /Android/data/cz.scamera.securitycamera/files/Pictures. Unfortunately, Android has restricted access to this data folder since its Android 11 update for added security. On phones with Android 11 or newer, users can no longer view this folder directly from the built-in "My Files" app.
Cloud storage
Except storing alarms locally, camera stores alarms to the app's cloud. When alarms are in the cloud, you can access then anytime from anywhere, regardless if the camera is turned on or off or even when the camera is offline. When the camera is configured to store detected motions as pictures (default settings), only low resolution pictures are sent to the cloud to save bandwidth. High resolution images are left in the camera and can be downloaded upon a request.
Starting with app version 3.11.0, it is possible to opt-out of storing alarms to app's cloud and keep alarms only in the local camera storage. This may be suitable for users who insist on keeping their recordings only in their own repositories. Nevertheless, when you choose this option, the new alarms will be available to browse only if the camera is turned on and online, because all new recordings must be first downloaded from the camera to monitor before they are available for browsing. After loading alarms from the camera, alarms are automatically cached in the monitor, so the next time you want to browse them, it is not necessary to download them from the camera again.
In several countries, cloud storage is only available for users with a paid account. These countries are currently Colombia, Ecuador, India and Indonesia.
The app's cloud is physically located in Google's cloud repositories in a data center in California, USA.
Google Drive
Another option is storing recordings of detected motions in your private Google Drive. This option is turned off by default. To turn it on, you must be signed in the app using some Google account, so the app knows where to store the recordings and has valid credentials to access files in your private Google Drive. When the camera is configured to store detected motions as pictures (default settings), only high resolution pictures are sent to the cloud.
When you turn on this option for the first time, you will be asked to confirm permission for the app to access your Google Drive. Without the permission, the app cannot access and store alarms to your Drive.
It is important to know that storing recordings to your Google Drive can take a significant amount of space on the Drive. A rough estimate is that every 1000 alarms will take up from 1 GB to 5 GB of free disk space. When your camera produces for instance 1000 alarms each day, the app can fill up from 7 GB to 35 GB on the Drive every week. Application automatically deletes old recordings by default (older than 12 days), including from the Google Drive, so if you have enough space on your Drive to store alarms of these 12 days, the amount of recordings will not grow indefinitely and old recordings will be deleted automatically on regular basis.
Do not automatically delete old recordings
This option is for advanced users who want to prevent the app from automatically deleting old recordings from Google Drive as noted in the previous paragraph. If this option is enabled, the application keeps old recordings in the Drive (does not delete them automatically) and you must manage your Google Drive manually, otherwise the space occupied by alarms will grow indefinitely. When the Drive becomes full, the app stops storing new alarms to it.