How to Import Your FiLMiC Pro Footage to a Mac or PC

Capturing footage on your iPhone or Android device with FiLMiC Pro is easy — but what is the best way to import your video to a computer for editing?

This is a question we get all the time in a wide variety of forms:

Isn’t iTunes only for Mac? What do I use for FiLMiC Pro on Windows?

How do I maintain the original quality when transferring my video to a computer?

I saved my footage to an SD Card on Android but can’t find the files. Where are they?

Should I save to the FiLMiC Library on iOS? Or to the Photos app Camera Roll?

Well in this article we are going to share the best methods for transferring your FiLMiC Pro shot footage from your smartphone to an Apple or Windows computer, as well as answer the most frequently asked questions around importing footage.

IMPORTING FiLMiC PRO VIDEO ON A MAC

If you’re an iPhone user who saved to the FiLMiC Library then iTunes File Sharing cannot be beaten as a transfer method. It is fast and ensures your clips arrive on your computer without modification:

Watch this tutorial to learn how to import your FiLMiC Pro video using iTunes File Sharing ⬆

If you’re an iPhone user who saved to the Photos app, then you’ll need to use Image Capture which comes preinstalled on MacOS to import your footage. We do not recommend saving to the Photos app for the these reasons.

Watch this tutorial to learn how to import footage stored in your Photos app using Image Capture on MacOS⬆

Importing to a Mac from an Android Device

If you’re an Android shooter who edits on a Mac, then you will need to use the free app Android File Transfer. This allows you to navigate to both the internal storage(/DCIM/FilmicPro) or your SD card (SD/Android/data/com.filmic.filmicpro/files/DCIM) and quickly copy your clips across to your computer.

Watch this tutorial to learn how to use Android File Transfer to copy footage from your Android to MacOS ⬆

IMPORTING FiLMiC PRO VIDEO ON A WINDOWS PC

Watch this tutorial for a full overview of importing FiLMiC Pro footage on Windows 10 from both iOS and Android devices ⬆

If you’re an Android shooter on a Windows PC, then importing your FiLMiC footage is an insanely easy process as it is no different to copying files across from an external hard drive. The above tutorial on Windows 10 import methods will take you through the process ⬆

If you’re an iPhone user who saved to the FiLMiC Library using a PC running Windows 10, then the process is identical to using a Mac: use iTunes File Sharing as it is fast and ensures your clips arrive on your computer without modification. iTunes for Windows can be downloaded for free here.

If you happened to save to the Photos app instead, you can use the Windows 10 Photos app to easily import those clips. Both techniques are covered in the above tutorial on Windows 10 FiLMiC Pro import.

How to Import from FiLMiC Pro Video: Top 6 Most Frequently Asked Questions:

Q1: Do you recommend Airdrop for transferring files from FiLMiC Pro?

A: Whilst Airdrop can be convenient it has major drawbacks:

• It drains your battery quickly
• It is much slower than using a wired connection with iTunes File Sharing
• It will automatically convert your HEVC files to H.264 and is therefore not a lossless process. It can actually change your format.

For these reasons iTunes File Sharing is the superior option if available to you.

Q2: Isn’t iTunes only for Mac? What do I use for FiLMiC Pro on Windows if I shoot with an iPhone?

A: iTunes is freely available for Windows and can be downloaded here. The process for importing is identical to using a Mac and covered in this tutorial.

Q3: How do I maintain the original quality when transferring my video to a computer?

A: The best way to ensure your original file is untouched is to import using iTunes File Sharing on both Mac and Windows if you shoot on an iOS device. If you shoot on an Android device then you can easily copy the video files from the FiLMiC Pro directory straight to your computer as demonstrated here.

Q4: I saved my footage to an SD Card on Android but can’t find the files. Where are they?

If you saved your FiLMiC Pro video directly to your SD card, then you will find them located under the following path: SD/Android/data/com.filmic.filmicpro/files/DCIM

Q5: Should I save to the FiLMiC Library on iOS? Or to the Photos app Camera Roll?

A: By default you will be saving to the internal FiLMiC Library on iOS. This is by far the most reliable storage location and where we recommend you save your files for a number of reasons including:

1. It is the most reliable and immediate location for the app to save data.
2. It will not compress or alter your recording in any way.
3. It provides the fastest transfer to a computer.

There are a couple downsides to saving to our internal library vs the Photos app however:

1. If you delete the FiLMiC Pro app on iOS, your footage goes with it.
2. Your recordings are not immediately accessible in editing apps that look for your footage in the native Photos app.

Downside number 1 is easily avoided: it takes some effort to delete an app so this shouldn’t happen accidentally.

And downside number 2 can be worked around: We let you copy your clips from the FiLMiC Library to the Photos app after capture.

But what are the downsides associated with saving to the Photos app? The main three are:

1. It adds an additional point of failure (if the iOS transfer mechanism fails then we have a problem).
2. It may recompress unsupported formats (such as 4K anamorphic clips).
3. On older devices iOS may not accept all high speed framerate clips.

In short don’t save to the Photos app if you want the best results. Use the FiLMiC Library and then copy to the Photos app if needed.

Q6: Would you recommend I save to an SD card on Android instead of my internal storage?

A: Unlike on iOS you do have the ability to choose between saving to internal storage or external storage (micro SD card) provided your hardware supports this. This can be set in FiLMiC Pro under the Settings > CMS menu.

Unfortunately when saving to an external SD card directly, the directory is not scanned by the Gallery app (SD/Android/data/com.filmic.filmicpro/files/DCIM).

In addition, even the fastest Micro SD card can struggle with the high bitrates FiLMiC Pro provides. So whilst the card itself may be fast enough to record in 4K Extreme, the actual transfer speeds supported by your phone hardware can’t always keep up.

For this reason we recommend saving to internal storage for the utmost reliability and performance, and then copying to your external micro SD card when you need to free up space.

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We hope this helped! Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.

Make sure you’re subscribed to the FiLMiC Pro Youtube Channel for more reviews, smartphone video samples and tutorials, and you can find more information on our website.

Thanks for reading!