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How to save Ring Doorbell video without a subscription

Keyan Riddick
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If you know anything about smart-home technology, you may know that some of the best purchases aren’t just a one-time fee — especially anything with cloud-based features. Ring, one of the big names in smart home surveillance, is no exception. Many of the company’s Ring Video Doorbell features, including saving videos, require you to sign up for their monthly Ring Protect subscription. Even if you want to save videos that you’ve watched on your phone, you’ll still need to subscribe.

Currently, the company offers three plans for recording and saving video from a Ring device. The basic plan lets you record video from one Ring product. The plus option will work for multiple products. If you’re looking for more than just recording video, sign up for the company’s pro plan, which includes video recording, 24/7 professional monitoring service for Ring Alarm, and a few more noteworthy features. For example, you can get a discount on your home insurance.

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Unfortunately, without a subscription, you also won’t be able to see footage from a previous notification either, and nearly everything needs to be live. Knowing this makes Ring’s subscription plan pretty essential if you’re using it for security purposes.

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Without the plan, you can pretty much only use Ring’s video features in real time. Learn more about how the Ring Doorbell works and get some advice on which Ring model to buy. Also, if the company detects that you are accessing some of its paid-for features without having an active subscription plan, they could terminate your account.

Where does Ring Doorbell save video?

If you have a Ring subscription, Ring saves video to the cloud. Once videos are saved, you can go back and rewatch them or download them to your device.

Can I save Ring video locally?

If you have the Ring subscription, then saving video and viewing old footage becomes easy and possible all within the app.

How do you save a video on Ring?

You can download saved videos locally to your devices, either from the mobile app or from the Ring website. To save video on your computer, go to Ring’s website and log in to your account. Select History > Manage. Select the videos you want to save — you can pick up to 20. After that, hit Download, and then Ring will compress and zip all the videos together and download it to your computer. When you decompress and open the folder, each video appears as an MP4.

How do I save a ring video to my phone?

If you’d rather download the videos to your phone, you’ll follow similar steps. On your phone, open the Ring app, then tap Menu > History. Next, scroll to the video you want to download, tap the Three dots to its right, and tap Share. Next, tap Download, and a pop-up menu should appear to download the video. After the video is downloaded, you’ll find it either in your Photos app (Apple users) or Files app (Android users). Note: You can only download one video at a time on the phone.

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Keyan Riddick
Keyan Riddick
Smart Home Author
Keyan Riddick is a freelance writer based in the mountains on North Carolina. When he isn't writing you can find him behind…
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