How to Recover Deleted GoPro Videos: Comprehensive Guide
As one of the most popular action cameras in recent years, GoPro does occasionally have videos or photos accidentally deleted—that’s inevitable. This guide covers proven methods to retrieve deleted GoPro videos from SD cards, including using reliable recovery software and leveraging backups.
Is It Possible to Recover Deleted GoPro Footage?
GoPro is a popular brand of action cameras known for their compact size, rugged build, and ability to shoot in extreme conditions, from extreme sports to breathtaking travel scenes. Most GoPro models store videos on microSD cards, which are convenient but also susceptible to data loss due to accidental deletion, formatting, SD card corruption, file system errors, etc.
If you’ve lost your precious footage, don’t panic, there are reliable ways to recover deleted GoPro videos, even from a formatted SD card. As long as the lost videos haven’t been overwritten, there’s a high chance to recover deleted GoPro videos from SD card. Before trying any recovery method, stop using the SD card immediately to prevent overwriting lost data.
How to Recover Deleted GoPro Videos
Actually, the deleted videos aren’t truly gone. They’re just invisible to the operating system. With the right recovery approach, you can often restore them. Whether you’re a casual traveler or a professional content creator, understanding the correct steps and acting quickly can make the difference between a total loss and a fully restored memory card.
Method 1. Restore from GoPro Cloud Storage
If you’ve subscribed to GoPro Plus, your camera may have automatically uploaded videos to the cloud. You can restore deleted videos from GoPro cloud storage straightforward.
Step 1. Download and install GoPro Quik app on your mobile device or you can log in to your GoPro Plus account on the official GoPro website.
Step 2. Navigate to "Media" > "Cloud" to check if your videos are stored online.
Step 3. Choose the files you want to recover and right click on it, then select "Download" to save them back to your device.
Method 2. Run CHKDSK Command
Sometimes GoPro may display errors such as "SD card error", making the video files in the camera unreadable. This could be caused by issues with the memory card or file system errors. The CHKDSK command is a built-in Windows utility that scans a drive for file system errors and bad sectors, then repairs them if possible. You can try run CHKDSK command to recover deleted files on the GoPro SD card.
Step 1. Remove the SD card from GoPro camera and connect it to your computer with a card reader.
Step 2. Open "Command Prompt" and run it as administrator.
Step 3. Type the following command "chkdsk G: /f /r" and press "Enter". Replace the drive letter "G" with your actual drive letter.
The command will automatically scan and repair the detected error if possible. Once completed, you can try to access the videos in the SD card.
Method 3. Run Windows File Recovery Command
Windows File Recovery is a command-line data recovery tool developed by Microsoft, which can recover permanently videos from local storage device, including camera SD cards. But it requires basic familiarity for Windows File Recovery command and only works on Window 10 and 11.
Step 1. Download and install Windows File Recovery from Microsoft official channel on your computer.
Step 2. Connect the GoPro SD card to your computer and note its drive letter.
Step 3. Type the following command "Winfr F: E: /regular" and press "Enter". Replace the drive letters "F" and "E" with your actual drive letters.
- ★Tips:
- F: the source drive letter (your GoPro SD card).
- E: the destination drive letter.
- Regular: perform a quick scan. If the deleted files were removed a long time ago, or if you need to recover lost files from a formatted drive, you can switch to the extensive mode. However, this will take more time.
Windows File Recovery allows you to recover specific files, folders or file types. You just need to add a filter command after the basic command. For instance, to recover all videos in the drive, you can type "Winfr E: F: /extensive /n *.mp4" and hit "Enter".
When the process is completed, you can press "y" to check the recovered files in the destination folder.
Method 4. Recover Deleted GoPro Videos with MyRecover
If you're uncomfortable for command-line tool, the professional SD card data recovery, MyRecover can save your videos. It can scan all the drives on your computer and offer a chance to retrieve lost data.
Unlike Windows File Recovery, it adopts a visual interface that simplifies the data recovery process, allowing even beginners to complete data recovery by clicking icons. It covers most data loss scenarios, such as lost partitions, deleted partitions, inaccessible drives, system crashes, and virus infections.

- No command-line usage, fully visual, point-and-click interface.
- Supports recovery from HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, and SD cards.
- Compatible with NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, ReFS, and even Ext4 file systems.
- Offers both Quick Scan and Deep Scan for comprehensive recovery.
- Fully supports all major Windows versions, including 11, 10, 8, 8.1, 7, and Servers.
Step 1. Download and install MyRecover on your computer, then connect the GoPro SD card to your computer.
Step 2. Launch it and select the SD card to scan for lost files, then click "Scan". You can click "Deep Scan" after the quick scan finishes to recover more files.
Step 3. Choose the videos you want to recover from the recoverable lists and click "Recover" to retrieve lost data from SD card.
The free version allows up to 500MB of data recovery. Upgrade to the Professional version to enjoy unlimited data recovery capacity and the function of previewing file contents before data recovery.
Step 4. Select a safe location (not the original one) to save the recovered files.
Upon completion of the recovery process, the message "Files have been recovered successfully" will pop up. You can access and check the recovered files by clicking on the destination folder path or "Browse" button.
Final Words
Losing GoPro footage can be frustrating, but with quick action and the right tools, you can often recover deleted videos from GoPro successfully. Start with cloud backups, then move to CHKDSK or Windows File Recovery. If the videos are still missing, professional tools like MyRecover can be the last option.
If you're looking for a comprehensive data recovery tool, MyRecover is a worthwhile investment. To meet users' more advanced needs, MyRecover has also provided a Professional version, which allows users to recover data from crashed systems.