July 26, 2022
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macOS QuickTime Player is truly a great tool to create our own audios and videos for free. With its screen recording feature, it even becomes an indispensable tool for some YouTube influencers to publish tutorial videos. But QuickTime Player may run into a crash when recording screen/movie/audio on mac, and leave QuickTime files unsaved, then what to do?
To recover an unsaved or restore deleted QuickTime Player recording on mac, including macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur or Catalina, here we list 4 methods, with detailed steps written down.
Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac
Free DownloadFirst, we should know that QuickTime records 3 types of files on Mac: audio, screen and movie captured via the Mac camera. The audio recording is saved in M4A format, the video and movie recordings are saved in MOV format. To recover QuickTime recordings and open them without failure, you should recognize these files in correct file extensions.
Yes. QuickTime player has the feature to automatically save a screen, audio or movie recording.
QuickTime will automatically save your recordings under:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Library/Autosave Information/, as long as the recording files are not saved by clicking Save as following, the recordings will be stored in the Auto Save location.
An unsaved QuickTime recording may be caused by sudden power off, app quite unexpectedly, or others. Indeed, there are 3 methods to recover the unsaved QuickTime screen, audio or movie recordings, but the recovery is still a matter of luck, it depends on many factors, but here we will simply call them all as luck. Anyway, they are worth a try, since these methods won’t make the situation worse nor do harm to your mac.
One of the greatest benefits macOS brings to mac users is its AutoSave feature, which will auto save your files before your click the Save button in different macOS applications, like Preview, QuickTime Player. That’s to say, if you can find the AutoSave location of QuickTime Player files, we might be able to recover an unsaved QuickTime recording.
Another method to recover unsaved QuickTime recordings is using Temporary folders, it is again a matter of luck, but basing on my successful experience to find back my unsaved files before, you are recommended to have a go.
You may have realized that unsaved QuickTime recordings will be saved in file name starting with “unsaved” on macOS earlier than 10.15, or “screen recording” on macOS 10.15 or later. If above 2 methods can’t find back the recordings, you can take some time to search unsaved QuickTime recordings by viewing in Finder.
In the case that your QuickTime screen or audio recordings are permanently deleted, or went disappeared for no reason, and you want to find back, you will need a professional tool.
To recover lost or deleted QuickTime recordings on mac easily and successfully, Cisdem Data Recovery is an ideal choice. It is designed to recover 200+ types of files lost or deleted under different situations, no matter your files are deleted on internal hard drive or external hard drive on mac. In addition, it allows users to preview the deleted files before finding them back, to make sure you are getting those you want back.
Main Features of Cisdem Data Recovery
Here are 2 tutorials to recover deleted QuickTime screen recordings and audio recordings respectively.
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QuickTime keeps unsaving your recordings? Here we have some tips to fix “QuickTime Screen Recording Didn’t Save on Mac”.
We are always recommended to update to the latest version when macOS and its apps release a new version, because they come with enhance performance and fix prior bugs. If your QuickTime doesn’t work properly, check if there is an update, if the problem persists after an update, maybe it is time to update your macOS to the latest one too.
A QuickTime recording is never small in size, we need to leave enough space for a newly created recording video, otherwise, the program will quit unexpectedly. This also proves that we should have a good habit of mac cleanup, files backup, etc.
When one or several heavy programs run on your mac and use high CPU, it becomes harder to other applications working properly, your mac responds slowly or some programs just stop working. Therefore, before a QuickTime recording starts, we should quite those Apps that use high CPU as many as possible.
QuickTime Player can perform multiple tasks at the same time, playing or recording videos, but if you want to avoid unsaved QuickTime recordings, we’d better focus one task at one time, to gear your QuickTime player up for current recording task.
With macOS AutoSave feature, things do become easier when talking about unsaved file recovery, this is also true for unsaved QuickTime audio and screen recording recovery, though it is a matter of luck, we have to try. To recover deleted QuickTime recording files, it would be much easier, since we have tool like Cisdem Data Recovery can do this for us.
Connie has been writing for Mac productivity and utility apps since 2009. Each review and solution is based on her practical tests, she is aways energetic and trustworthy in this field.