Save Imou camera clips locally in Home Assistant (post-alarm recording workaround)

Third party integrations
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Imou Life does not yet ship a built-in download to local disk button.
You can still save short MP4 clips on your Home Assistant host after an alarm by recording from the existing cloud HLS live stream** with Home Assistant’s camera.record action.

This is post-event local recording—not continuous NVR recording, and not a download of Imou cloud history.

A common question from Imou + Home Assistant users:How do I download / keep Imou camera video on my NAS or HA disk?

Column 1 Column 2
Goal Supported by this guide?
Keep a 30–120s clip after motion / human alarm yes

Until native Imou Life recording lands, this YAML + automation path is the supported self-host recipe.

What you need

  1. Imou Life configured in Home Assistant, with at least one camera.* entity
  2. Permission to edit configuration.yaml and restart HA
  3. A writable folder for MP4 files
  4. (Optional for real alarms) Event push enabled with a reachable callback URL (public / Nabu Casa / tunnel). Without it, you can still test with a manual camera.record call.

Quota note: Each recording pulls the cloud live stream and consumes Open Platform live-view quota. Check My Resources on the international console.

Step 1 — Enable the Stream integration

camera.record needs Home Assistant’s core Stream component.

It does not appear under Settings → Devices & services → Add integration (searching “Stream” only shows unrelated brands).

Add to configuration.yaml:

stream:

Save the file. Restart later in Step 3.

Step 2 — Create a folder and allowlist it

HA will only write recordings under paths listed in allowlist_external_dirs. Creating a folder alone is not enough.

The filename in Steps 4–5 must use the same allowlisted directory.

Example A — Home Assistant OS / Supervised (/media)

mkdir -p /media/imou

homeassistant:
  allowlist_external_dirs:
    - /media/imou

Valid paths look like:

  • /media/imou/test_20260810_153000.mp4
  • /media/imou/{{ trigger.event.data.device_id }}_20260810_153000.mp4

Example B — Core / development

mkdir -p /path/to/config/www/imou

homeassistant:
  name: Dev   # keep your existing keys
  allowlist_external_dirs:
    - /path/to/config/www/imou

Merge allowlist_external_dirs into your existing homeassistant: block—do not duplicate the key.

Step 3 — Check config and restart

  1. Developer tools → YAML → Check configuration
  2. Restart Home Assistant
  3. Wait until Imou camera entities are not unavailable (Developer tools → States)

Calling camera.record too soon often returns:

Referenced entities camera.… are missing or not currently available

Step 4 — Manual recording test

  1. Open Developer tools → Actions (formerly Services)
  2. Call camera.record with your real entity ID
  3. Put filename under the allowlisted directory from Step 2

Example A (/media/imou)

action: camera.record
target:
  entity_id: camera.YOUR_CAMERA_ENTITY
data:
  filename: /media/imou/test_{{ now().strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S') }}.mp4
  duration: 30
  lookback: 0

Example B (/path/to/config/www/imou)

action: camera.record
target:
  entity_id: camera.YOUR_CAMERA_ENTITY
data:
  filename: /path/to/config/www/imou/test_{{ now().strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S') }}.mp4
  duration: 30
  lookback: 0

Tips

  • Keep lookback: 0 — pre-roll is not reliable on cloud HLS
  • Find the entity under Settings → Devices & services → Imou Life → device → entities, or search States for camera.
  • Dual-lens devices may expose two cameras (e.g. PTZ vs fixed)—pick the correct entity_id
  • After ~30 seconds, confirm the MP4 on disk (or Media Browser if that path is exposed)

Step 5 — Automate on Imou alarms

5.1 Enable event push (for real alarms)

Settings → Devices & services → Imou Life → Configure → Event push

  • Enable event push
  • Include message type alarm
  • Make sure the callback URL is reachable from the Imou cloud

HA events:

Column 1 Column 2
Event Meaning
imou_life_event All accepted pushes
imou_life_alarm Security / alarm-type messages only

Useful payload fields: device_id, channel_id, msg_type (e.g. human, videoMotion, mobileDetect).

5.2 Example automation

Keep filename on the same allowlisted root as Step 2.

alias: Imou alarm — save local clip
description: Post-event record via camera.record (cloud HLS)
mode: single
max_exceeded: silent
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: imou_life_alarm
    # Optional filters once you know payload values:
    # event_data:
    #   device_id: "YOUR_DEVICE_ID"
    #   msg_type: human
actions:
  - action: camera.record
    target:
      entity_id: camera.YOUR_CAMERA_ENTITY
    data:
      filename: /media/imou/{{ trigger.event.data.device_id }}_{{ now().strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S') }}.mp4
      duration: 60
      lookback: 0

For Example B, only change the filename prefix to /path/to/config/www/imou/.

mode: single drops overlapping runs. Use queued or parallel if you need overlapping clips (watch Open Platform quota).

5.3 Test without a public webhook

Developer tools → Events → Fire event:

event_type: imou_life_alarm
event_data:
  device_id: "test"
  msg_type: human
  channel_id: "0"

Confirm the automation runs and a file appears.

Limitations (please read)

  1. Cloud HLS only — same source as live preview; a few seconds of latency is normal.
  2. Post-event only — no dependable pre-alarm buffer without keeping a continuous stream open (extra quota / complexity).
  3. Quota — every clip consumes live-stream quota for the AppId.
  4. Encrypted alarm images in push payloads are not usable as notification thumbnails; use camera.snapshot for stills.
  5. This is a YAML / automation workaround. A first-class Imou Life feature is planned later.

Troubleshooting

Column 1 Column 2
Symptom What to do
Stream integration is not set up Add stream: to configuration.yaml, restart. Stream is not installed via the brand picker.
Can’t write …, no access to path! filename not under allowlist_external_dirs, folder missing, or absolute path mismatch. Fix and restart.
Referenced entities … missing or not currently available Wait until the camera is not unavailable after restart; verify entity ID.
No imou_life_alarm Enable event push + alarm; fix external URL; check Diagnostics → event_push.recent_msg_type_counts. Privacy mask (openCamera / closeCamera) fires imou_life_event only.
Never see human / videoMotion Enable motion/human detection on the device; confirm the cloud actually pushes those types.
Empty / failed MP4 Stream URL expired, network issue, or quota; retry; check logs around getLiveStreamInfo / stream / ffmpeg.

Roadmap — native support

We plan to productize this flow in a later Imou Life version, for example:

  • A dedicated action/service (record clip for a camera entity)
  • Optional “auto-record on alarm” settings (duration, path, message types)

Until then, this post is the recommended customer / self-host recipe. Track progress via Issues / Releases on Imou-Home-Assistant.

Related links

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