Automatically periodically delete old alert videos

I was speaking for the microsd card

All of the 12 second clips that I review from the camera get stored in a device folder on my phone. When they are reviewed I think they get downloaded to the phone and played from the phone’s memory automatically. I know that they can be “deleted” in the app so that they no longer show up in the notifications screen, but deleting them from the app doesn’t delete them from the device folder.

Hmmm, I have a folder (album) in the Photos app of my iPad named “Wyze”. In it are a mixture of photos (manual screenshots from within Wyze app I presume) and video clips of varying length (manual video recordings from within Wyze app I presume). Interestingly, screenshots and video clips that I create manually from within the app also get saved to my Camera Roll. So I confess, I’m not 100% sure how the “Wyze” album is utilized. I could be mistaken, but … I don’t see all (any?) of the 12-sec alert clips that I’ve viewed in there, nor is there an another album in which they’re being saved after viewing.

They must be talking about an Android feature.

So I just checked now and I had one motion event. I went to my device folders before watching the event and noted that there was no video folder since I had already deleted it from before. I went back to the Wyze app and watched the motion event for the first time and then after watching it, I went back to my device folders and saw that it had dropped the file into a newly automatically generated folder that wasn’t there before called “video”. It does this for every motion event that I review.

Yes, I have Android, I’m not sure if it’s a user-configurable feature or just how it works with the camera.

It’s often helpful to spell that out in your original post. As much detail as possible so people trying to help will know where these files are that need to be deleted. Like in the cloud, the microSD card or in a folder on an Android phone. Milehiguy and I had to do a lot of reading and asking questions just to figure out we wouldn’t be of much help.

Sorry for the run-around. Updated my first post to add the relevant info.

FYI in the 2.0 app tap “Account” at the bottom right, then “App Settings”. It shows the “Cache File Size” which is how much space is used by those downloaded event clips, along with a button to clear the cache.

+1 for the ability to clear only files over 2 weeks old, but at least that’s an easy 1-click way to free up space.

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Good, that will help you get your information quicker. Some of us have put that info into our profile About me section. Not as good as including it in your OP, but I use it as a copy paste source. Maybe one day, they will add it as a signature line.

Thank you for that information. I was not aware you could do it that way, and I would agree that is much easier than navigating through Android to the device folders to delete them manually.

I’m not an Android user, but might there be an Android app available that will go clear out the device folder for you periodically?

We are trying to find a way to identify members as either Android, iOS or both. This thread is a perfect example of why. For now, there are two things you can do:

  1. Update the About Me section of your forum profile with your OS. Make sure it’s not more than 1 line, so it shows on single click of the username without having to click over to the full profile.

  2. Go to the post below and join Team Android or Team iOS groups. If we get enough participation, there we can add a group badge to everybody. Also, while you’re there, if you have any other ideas for identifying all members’ team, make a comment there.

I’m sure any number of Android automation apps (Tasker, Llama, etc) would have that ability, but that’s really beyond what a typical user should have to do. It’s good practice for apps to clean up after themselves if they’re not using cache folders that Android cleans up itself.

I imagine most users wouldn’t be happy to find their phone has run out of storage because Wyze is using multiple gigabytes for 2-year old event clips (exaggerated but possible scenario).

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Maybe but if there isn’t a willingness to develop that functionality I’d still rather delete them on my own. I’d prefer not download just another app that simple purpose. I just figured it would be simple enough thing to add in and improve the product.

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yes I have notice this too after one week of use. Depending on motion notification, it took somewhere 300MB space on my Android Pixel 2 device. I am using “Files by Google” app which automatically suggest periodically that you have some junk files and it let you quickly choose and delete. Here is the link

Haven’t had the chance to try this until today, but clearing the cache from inside the settings in the app doesn’t seem to delete the video files in the device folder.

Why are these videos even being saved to our devices?

Downloading should be optional.

The event videos have to be downloaded in order to view them, so it just makes sense to keep that downloaded copy on the device so you can watch it multiple times without having to download again.
How long the event video stays cached on the device is the part we’re hoping for some control over.

This is where I would respectfully disagree, the alert videos are (more often than not) not very useful to me, since it only takes a mere simple movement or a sound to cause the camera to activate, depending on how you have it configured. Practically speaking, I am most interested in saving videos that are important, which is maybe 5% of the videos or less in my case. I personally feel that the app should only permanently save a video to your device if you specifically choose to do so (even after viewing it), otherwise the videos should just be downloaded each time you want to view it until you’ve decided they’re important enough to save permanently. They are only 12 second videos, so assuming you’re probably not going to view them multiple times anyway, I don’t see that as being a big deal data-wise. Of course, the downside is that if you suddenly enter a non-serviced area then you may not be able to download a video that you have already once seen, so this could be occasionally inconvenient.

I completely agree, with the key word being “permanently”. This feature request is asking that the user be given the choice not to retain downloaded event videos permanently (as is the default now), but rather have the app purge them after a specific time period (i.e. a temporary “cache”).

This is something I don’t think Wyze can do because of the way AWS charges not only for storage but also for each and every download request. If the video weren’t automatically cached (at least for a short time) this would inflate Wyze’s AWS costs because they would be charged each time a user downloaded the same video.

Also, as you say these clips are relatively small, so as long as they are purged after a certain amount of time there shouldn’t be an issue caching a couple hundred MBs of videos.

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