Your Tapo Camera Not Recording? (Simple Fixes to Try!)

If your Tapo camera is not recording anything, this makes your security establishment useless!

So, in this quick guide, we’ll walk you through everything you can do, configure, and change to get your camera recording and sending personalized notifications from the Tapo app.

Let’s start with the most important first.

How To View Tapo Camera Recordings?

To view your camera recordings, open the Tapo app, select your camera, and press “Playback and Download” below the live feed.

On the top, make sure that you’re viewing the “Playback” tab, and you’ll be shown (by the date) all recordings for this day with timing and identification.

The little icons below the timings show you what’s detected. Whether it is a person or an object, you can view each recording.

If you have no recordings at all, you either have a very peaceful yard, or something is wrong!

Tapo Camera Not Recording – 8 Guaranteed Ways To Fix!

Note: Have you tried unplugging the Tapo camera for 60 seconds?

1. Adjust the Detection Settings

The Tapo camera will only record when a certain detection condition is fulfilled.

This means that you need to have enabled at least one detection condition for your Tapo camera to record and store footage of ongoing action in the point of view.

There are several detection type settings, and to configure them, follow these steps:

1. Open your Tapo app, tap on your camera
2. Tap on the cogwheel-like icon at the top.
3. Then tap the detection square on the right.

You will see several options:

• Motion Detection – When enabled, the Tapo camera will detect and capture any motion identified in the entire view, sending you instant notifications.
• Person Detection – Using smart AI algorithms, the Tapo camera will try to identify and only capture and send notifications of trespassing people. 
• Line-Crossing Detection – By setting a boundary (straight line), your Tapo camera will only capture and notify you of objects crossing the line.
• Area Intrusion Detection – Deploy an activity zone and get notified whenever the Tapo camera detects activity in the pre-set action zone.
• Camera Tampering – Receive notifications and record activity whenever your Tapo camera is being obstructed or tampered with.

We recommend enabling the most important–motion detection.

This way, when something is moving in front of your Tapo camera’s point of view, you will receive notifications and recordings.

Quick Tip: Also enable the Person Detection setting for personalized notifications!

2. Increase the Motion Sensitivity

The motion sensitivity setting of your Tapo camera determines how much action must happen in the point of view for the device to start recording.

Hence, if your motion detection sensitivity is too low, it’s likely that your camera is missing important events and critical security notifications.

You can manually adjust the sensitivity for Motion Detection and Person Detection, which will guarantee that your camera will not skip recording important events.

To adjust the sensitivity setting, select your Tapo camera, tap the cogwheel, and first enter the “Motion Detection” tab and then “Person Detection”.

If the slider is in the middle well, drag it slightly to the right to about 65%.

Then, walk in front of your camera and check whether you will be sent a notification.

If yes, then there should be an available recording in the “Playback and Download” tab.

Note: Setting the sensitivity too high will result in unwanted notifications and recordings of cats, wind, leaves, etc.

3. Enable Line-Crossing Detection

If your Tapo camera won’t start recording, perhaps you need to deploy a more aggressive way to start recording events.

Tapo cameras feature a nice detection option called “Line-Crossing,” allowing you to set a boundary (straight line), which, when crossed, the camera starts recording.

To enable “Line-Crossing,” open the Tapo app, select your camera, tap the cogwheel, choose “Detection,” and select “Line-Crossing Detection”.

When you enable the feature, tap “Boundary Settings” and adjust the straight line as per your preference.

The recommendation here is to strategically deploy the straight line in a spot where you want to be notified once it is crossed. 

That would be the door, entrance, walkway, etc…

When you’re ready, cross the line of your camera and check the “Playback and Download” tab.

4. Ensure microSD card is Active

If your Tapo camera is still not detecting the microSD card, and you’re not subscribed to the Tapo Cloud Storage, your camera won’t record because there is no place to save the recordings. 

So head to the Tapo app, tap your camera, then the cogwheel, and press “Storage & Recording”.

Then ensure that you can see the available GBs under “Local Storage”.

If not, and the tab is blank, chances are that your Tapo camera is not detecting the inserted microSD card.

How to Reinsert Tapo Camera microSD Card?

For Tapo cameras that work with a hub, the microSD card goes into the hub, not the camera.

To eject the microSD card, push it inwards, and it should pop out. You need to ensure that the card is inserted in the correct orientation. 

When you reinsert the microSD card, head back to the “Local Storage” tab in the Tapo app and verify that you can see the available GBs.

5. Configure the Recording Storage

To dynamically monitor your yard and store recordings, your Tapo camera requires a microSD card or Cloud Storage.

Most people go with a physical microSD card, which provides about 30GB of storage for motion detection recordings.

• The way this works is via “overwriting”.

This means that when the camera’s microSD card is full, the oldest recordings will be replaced by the most recent ones.

This way, you always have all the recordings available for about 1 week back (based on frequency and the detection settings).

So, you need to ensure a few options are enabled for this work:

• Local Recording – In your Tapo camera settings, tap on “Storage & Recording” and ensure that the “Local Recording” is enabled.
• Loop Recording – In the “Local Recording” tab, enable “Loop Recording” so you can overwrite the oldest footage with the most recent.

If you have enabled these settings, you’ve just told your Tapo camera to store recordings in the microSD card and overwrite the oldest with the newest.

So, test if the camera is now recording.

6. Wipe Clean the Camera Lenses

If your Tapo camera won’t start recording, perhaps the camera doesn’t see anything.

The lens could be smudgy, obstructed, or covered with a layer of condensation, making the POV blurry.

So, use a soft towel to wipe clean the camera lens and verify the lens is seeing clearly.

You can check the live feed of your camera through the “Playback” tab in the Tapo camera app settings.

7. Factory Reset the Tapo Camera

Sometimes, recording problems with Tapo cameras may occur due to software problems, and the best way to address all of them would be via a factory reset.

This will erase ALL in-app Tapo camera settings but will NOT erase the recordings saved in the microSD or the Cloud.

Tip: To be 100% sure that you’ll save your recordings, eject the microSD card before the reset.

Resetting the Tapo camera is straightforward–locate and hold the RESET button on the camera while the device is powered on and working.

The LED must go red, and when the reset is over, the LED will start alternating between red and green.

Then you can set up the camera cleanly.

Quick Note: On some Tapo cameras, the reset button is behind a latch that you must unscrew!

8. Subscribe to Tapo Cloud Storage

If nothing works and your Tapo camera not recording anything, chances are that the microSD card is not compatible or defective.

A quick way to start saving recordings immediately is to buy cloud storage, provided by Tapo, using a subscription-based membership called “Tapo Care”.

You can enjoy a 30-day free trial, after which you’ll be paying monthly for your cloud storage.

• This way, you don’t need a physical microSD card; all the recordings will be saved on the cloud.

Why is my Tapo Camera Not Continuous Recording?

So, if you want your Tapo camera to record continuously, you need to have a microSD card and format it before continuing.

There are two steps you need to undertake for this to start working:

#1 Format the microSD Card:

Open the Tapo app, select your camera, then tap the cogwheel, press “Storage & Recording,” and go to the “Local Storage” tab.

To format your microSD card, tap on “Format microSD Card”.

Warning: This will erase ALL saved recordings from the microSD card!

#2 Enable 24-hour Recording:

The next step is to enable continuous recording by heading to the “Recording Schedule” from the “Local Storage” tab and tapping “Edit”.

Then mark with blue “Continuous Recording” all the 24 hours from the day, and your Tapo camera will start recording continuously from now on.

Note: If your Tapo camera is not recording no matter what you do, get in touch with Tapo customer support or try claiming your warranty.