Why a Galaxy recording breaks
A Samsung phone writes the video and sound to storage while you record, and writes the index, called the moov atom, when you stop. The index lists where every frame sits and which settings the camera used. If the battery runs out, the phone overheats and shuts down, or it restarts in the middle of a recording, that last step never happens. The footage is on the phone; the map to it is missing, so Gallery and every player refuse the file.
The repair builds a new index around that footage. It re-encodes nothing, so the picture and the sound are the camera's own, byte for byte.
What we tested it on
We took a 1080p recording from a Samsung Galaxy A56, removed its index, and repaired it. Every one of its 352 frames and 277 sound frames came back identical to the original, compared frame by frame.
A Samsung phone keeps its encoder settings only in the index, so the repair borrows them from another video the same phone recorded. On the phone, the app finds that video by itself in the same folder.
Find the file
Open My Files and go to Internal storage > DCIM > Camera, or to DCIM > Camera on the memory card if the phone records to one. Sort by date and look at the newest video.
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| A size in megabytes | Footage reached the storage. The file is worth repairing. |
| 0 bytes | The phone saved no footage. There is nothing to rebuild. |
| No file at all | Look for a hidden file whose name starts with .pending-. |
Some Galaxy phones keep a recording in progress under a hidden name that starts with .pending-. In My Files, open the menu, go to Settings and turn on "Show hidden system files" to see it. Android deletes abandoned .pending- files by itself after a while, so copy it today and give the copy a normal name such as broken-video.mp4.
Repair it on the phone
- Install Video Repair from Google Play. The repair runs on the phone, and the video never leaves it.
- Open the app and tap Search this phone. It lists the videos that won't play; tap yours.
- The app looks for another video from the same phone in the same folder and borrows its settings. If it doesn't find one, record two seconds with the same camera and the same resolution, and it uses that.
- Watch the preview: two seconds from the start, the middle and the end of your repaired video.
- Save the whole video with a one-time payment for this video, or a 3-month or yearly plan for every video. If the saved video doesn't play, write to us and you get a refund.
Or repair it on a computer
Copy the broken file and one normal video from the same phone to the computer. Open the broken one in the checker on this page and give it the normal one when it asks. Your browser reads both files from your disk; nothing is uploaded. The check and a 5-second preview are free, and the download is paid.
What it can't bring back
- A 0-byte file, or one filled with zeros. The footage never reached the storage.
- A video you deleted. The tool repairs files you still have; it doesn't undelete.
- A video moved into Secure Folder or a vault app. Copy it back out first.
- Footage that newer recordings overwrote.
If the repair can't rebuild your file, you haven't paid anything.