How does frigate recording config work?

[mdv0]

Hi, I’m trying to better understand how Frigate handles continuous recordings vs events/detections/snapshots and how to configure retention correctly.

1. Duplicate storage?

If I enable continuous recording and also enable events (clips), detections, or snapshots, does Frigate actually save separate/duplicate video/image files in addition to the continuous recordings?

Or are events/detections just “pointers/bookmarks” into the continuous video that don’t take extra space?

2. My current setup:

25 cameras (mostly 5MP)

Frigate shows 1.5–2.5 GB/hr per camera stored

HDD: 4 TB

Config:

Continuous recording: 7 days

Event mode (motion): 30 days

Detection mode (motion): 30 days

Snapshots: 30 days

Reality: I only get ~5 days continuous and ~5 days events before the disk is full.

3. Questions:

Should I even define both event retention and detection retention if I already have continuous enabled?

Do snapshots add significant extra storage usage, or are they negligible compared to video?

What would be the best config if I want around 4 days continuous + 10–15 days events + 30 days snapshots without wasting space?

Is the detection: section actually needed in the record: config when I have clips: enabled?

Basically, I want to avoid double-saving the same footage and configure Frigate so I maximize retention without running out of disk earlier than expected.

Thanks!

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

Frigate's recording system is designed to avoid duplicate storage through an efficient segment-based approach (1).

How Recording Works

Frigate saves video from the stream with the record role in 10-second segments (1). Recordings are stored at /media/frigate/recordings with the folder structure YYYY-MM-DD/HH/<camera_name>/MM.SS.mp4 in UTC time (1). These recordings are written directly from your camera stream without re-encoding (1).

Storage Efficiency - No Duplicates

Events, detections, and alerts don't create separate video files. Instead, they reference the same recording segments that overlap with tracked objects (1). This configuration "avoids storing duplicate footage for overlapping tracked objects and reduces overall storage needs" (1).

New recording segments are written from the camera stream to cache and "are only moved to disk if they match the setup recording retention policy" (1).

Your Configuration Analysis

Your current setup has overlapping retention periods that may be causing confusion:

record:
  retain:
    days: 7  # Continuous recording
  alerts:
    retain:
      days: 30  # Alert recordings
  detections:
    retain:
      days: 30  # Detection recordings

(1)

Frigate "chooses the largest matching retention value between the recording retention and the tracked object retention when determining if a recording should be removed" (1).

Storage Management

As of Frigate 0.12, "if there is less than an hour left of storage, the oldest 2 hours of recordings will be deleted" (1). This automatic cleanup helps prevent storage issues.

Retention Modes

The different retain modes determine which recording segments are kept (1):

• all - keeps all segments for the specified time period
• motion - keeps only segments where motion was detected
• active_objects - keeps only segments with true positive objects that weren't stationary

Recommendations for Your Setup

Based on the documentation, consider this approach:

record:
  enabled: True
  retain:
    days: 4
    mode: all
  alerts:
    retain:
      days: 15
      mode: motion
  detections:
    retain:
      days: 15  
      mode: motion

(1)

Snapshots are separate image files and do add storage, but they're typically negligible compared to video storage since they're single JPEG images per event.

📚 Sources:

1. Recording

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[mdv0]

@inkeep doesnt 15 days event plus 15 days detection overlap, also is it necessary to add detection days or can i ommit, what does detection days do.

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

Alerts vs Detections - What's the Difference?

You're right to question this - there is potential overlap. Let me clarify the difference between alerts and detections in Frigate's recording configuration (1).

Alerts are configured under the review section and typically require specific zones or labels to qualify as an alert (2). For example:

review:
  alerts:
    enabled: True
    labels:
      - car
      - person
    required_zones:
      - driveway

(2)

Detections are broader and include "all labels that are tracked / listened to" by default (2):

review:
  detections:
    enabled: True
    labels:
      - car
      - person
    required_zones:
      - driveway

(2)

Recording Retention Configuration

In the recording configuration, both alerts and detections can have separate retention settings (1):

record:
  enabled: True
  alerts:
    retain:
      days: 14
      mode: motion
  detections:
    retain:
      days: 14
      mode: motion

(1)

Can You Omit Detection Days?

Yes, you can omit the detections section entirely. The recording configuration shows that both alerts and detections sections are optional (1). If you only care about alert recordings, you can configure just:

record:
  enabled: True
  retain:
    days: 7
    mode: motion
  alerts:
    retain:
      days: 10
      mode: active_objects

(1)

What Detection Days Do

Detection retention keeps recording segments that overlap with any detection event, regardless of whether it qualified as an alert (1). This means if you have detections enabled but alerts restricted to certain zones, detection retention would preserve recordings of objects detected outside those alert zones.

The same options are available with alerts and detections, except it will only save the recordings when it overlaps with a review item of that type (1).

📚 Sources:

1. Recording
2. Full Reference Config

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Have another question? Just tag @inkeep.