How do I set up local storage backups on a USB device using my Arlo base station?

All wire-free cameras can record to local storage, even if your Internet goes down. Arlo Pro 2, Pro, and Wire-Free cameras always have 7 days of free rolling cloud storage.

For more information about recording locally to a VMB5000 SmartHub, visit How do I record 4K videos to a microSD card?.

Important reminders:

If you connect a USB device, the camera records to both the cloud and the USB device. If the camera and base station or SmartHub are powered on, but your Internet connection goes down, the camera continues to record to the USB device.
The Arlo app notifies you if the USB device is low on storage space or is full. If you select automatic overwrite, the oldest recordings are automatically deleted when available storage on the USB device is below 20%. Unrelated files that are not in the Arlo folder are not deleted by automatic overwrite.
Only automatically triggered recordings are saved locally to the connected USB device. Manual recordings are only saved to the cloud.

What you need

Required hardware:

An Arlo base station or the SmartHub with a USB port.
Note: The VMB5000 SmartHub does not have a USB port, but instead has a microSD card slot.
A USB 2.0 compatible flash drive or external hard drive with a Type-A connector and at least 16GB of available space.
Note: Network-attached storage (NAS) devices and drives with multiple partitions are not currently supported.
Warning: Do not use the Arlo base station or SmartHub to format storage devices with more than 2 TB of storage capacity. The base station formats storage devices using the FAT32 file system, which supports a maximum of 2 TB of storage space. The formatting process reduces the capacity of larger storage devices to a maximum of 2 TB.

Set up local storage

To set up local backup storage on an Arlo base station:

Plug the USB device into one of the two USB ports on the back of the Arlo base station.
Launch the Arlo app or log in to your Arlo account at my.arlo.com.
Tap or click Settings > My Devices.
Tap or click the Arlo base station or SmartHub into which you inserted the USB device.
If you see a green circle next to USB DISK and the status message Ready, skip to step 8.
Note: If you already named your USB Device using a computer, the name displays instead of USB Device 1. If you insert a second unnamed USB device, it displays as USB Device 2.
If you see the message “Requires Formatting” next to USB DISK or USB Device 2, the USB device is not in the correct format (FAT32). You must format the USB device before you can use it for local storage.
Warning: Formatting the USB device erases all data from the device. If you want to keep any files that are on the USB device, copy those files to another location before you format the USB device. Do not use the Arlo base station to format storage devices with more than 2 TB of storage capacity. The formatting process reduces the capacity of larger storage devices to a maximum of 2 TB.
To delete all files on your USB device and format it for local video storage:
- Tap or click > next to the USB device that you want to format.
- Tap or click Format USB Device.
- Wait for USB Device Status to change from Formatting to Ready.
  Warning: Do not remove the USB device while it is formatting. The USB device might become permanently unusable.
If you do not want old videos to be deleted when your USB device is low on storage space, tap or click the slider next to Automatic Overwrite to turn it off.
If automatic overwrite is turned off, the Arlo app notifies you when storage gets low so that you can enable local storage backup on a different USB device. If storage is completely full and automatic overwrite is turned off, videos are only recorded to the cloud until you turn on automatic overwrite or enable a different USB device.

Note: If you want a second USB device for when your first USB device is full, you can follow the same steps to add a second USB device, but you can only enable one USB device at a time.

For more information about local storage on your Arlo Pro system, visit: