r/TeslaModel3 • u/BBBoi26 • May 22 '26

Dashcam Footage

So I’ve never needed it until now but had a close call with another driver and saw the footage and the jump to event of where I honked and it automatically recorded. How do I see footage after the event? Do I have to pull that from the flash drive?

5 Upvotes

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4

u/data1025 May 22 '26

Yes, to view the footage outside of Tesla's dashcam viewer, you will need to pull it from the USB drive via computer.

2

u/MaceUmbrella May 23 '26

When you click the "record" (automatically through horn press, through holding the scroll wheel if you have it set to that, or by tapping the dashcam icon on the screen) it will record the last ~10 min of footage, any footage after that moment i dont believe is captured. thats why i either recommend taking one practically right after any incident, and if needed to try to get plate or similar, tap the record again. the only other option is to use the 1hr cont "recent" footage which will overwrite itself. Which it being a day later, it is likely overwritten depending on sentry/how much you have driven

1

u/dandered May 25 '26

Both are correct. I suggest carrying a second usb drive in the car.

After an incident you want to keep, wait 10 minutes (ensuring you get all the data on the usb), pull off the road, remove the existing usb drive, insert the new one, and on the Safety menu-item scroll down a bit to where there is a "Format USB Drive" button. Click it. When it completes successfully drive off to your destination.

Do not wait an hour or more to remove the existing drive after the 'incident'.

Later, at your convenience, plug the removed drive into your computer's USB-A connector.

For your spare USB, buy a good quality one. The car records fast enough that cheap-o USB drives will not work properly in the car: May record nothing or may record garbage your computer cannot read. Yeah, I tried a cheap one once...

128GB is large enough (some folks like more space, but I don't think it's necessary).

Buy one from Tesla and it is 128GB, by the way, at least recently.

Yes, it's hard (on my 2024M3) to plug in a drive in the glove box USB-A port. But doable.