How to Download DJI Video to iPhone (Step-by-Step Guide)

Filming and creating videos is one of the greatest tools to share stories and create something amazing. Whether it be for fun to show your friends and family or more professional to share with everyone, videos are powerful creative mediums.

Some videos require a computer to edit and finish, but with technology improving at the rate that it is, numerous apps can now edit videos right on your phone.

With drones becoming a popular way to create videos such as these, it is essential to know how to put videos created in the sky onto your phone.

Drones are becoming more and more popular every day, and as they increase in quality, they decrease in size and price. This allows more people to engage with the technology and create videos of their own.

DJI is known to create solid products at reasonable prices.

One of the fantastic features DJI has added is a system that allows pilots to put videos on their phones with little hassle.

This means that every pilot can learn how to download videos onto their phones by simply reading an article about it.

So in this article, I’ll explain in depth the process to follow to download your videos from your drone to your phone.

Step-by-Step Guide #

There are a couple different ways you can go about downloading videos from a DJI drone onto an iPhone. Each one is slightly different and is used for different reasons.  

Here’s the easiest way #

1. Turn on the cache video download on the respective app you fly with.
2. To do this, follow these steps: Settings > Camera Settings > Advanced Settings > Cache When Recording.
3. When this setting is selected, the camera will always send the videos to the drone once the video is finished recording.
4. On the camera page in settings, at the top, it allows you to change between saving media with the internal storage or the SD card.

The most important thing to remember when using this method is that the videos will be saved in low resolution.

This mode is simply to show what videos you captured while avoiding the use of excessive space on your phone.

When toggling the cache settings, you can also determine how much space you want to set aside on your phone to allow videos to download.

Here’s a slightly more complicated but possibly better way #

While on the DJI app and connected to your drone, you can download a full-quality video from the gallery.

While connected to the drone, you have access to all of the photos and videos that are formatted on the SD card.

This allows you to download the videos from the gallery to your phone by selecting them and downloading the full version.

The biggest drawback with this method, especially when it comes to videos, is that it will take a fairly long time to finish.

Depending on your connection, typically each 30 seconds of video will take approximately four minutes to download.

If you have the time or it is only a few photos you need, this method is a good one. Otherwise, the final method may be better for you.

To learn how to use this method, follow the steps below.

1. Open the DJI app and connect to your drone
2. Open the photo gallery
3. Select the desired photo or video
4. Click the download icon on the bottom left of the screen
5. Wait until the download completes

The final way #

The only other way to download a full-quality video is with the micro SD card. Nearly every DJI model comes with the need to purchase and use a micro SD card.

» MORE: SD Cards for DJI Drones (What You Need to Know)

All videos and photos captured on any camera need a place to be stored, drones included.

Most of the models, since the Mavic 2 Pro, come with a small amount of internal storage, usually around 8GB (the Mavic 3 Cine comes with an impressive 1 terabyte).

This internal storage can be used in case a memory card is forgotten or extra storage is needed.

Not only do memory cards store videos and photos from your drone, but they also make it easy to transfer them to your phone.

The best way to transfer videos from the card to your iPhone is to purchase an adapter that can hold SD cards, and then plug it into the lightning port on your phone.

Once you have the adapter, follow these steps to download photos and videos to your phone.

1. Plug the adapter into your phone
2. Plug the Micro SD card into an SD card adapter and plug it into the adapter in your phone
3. Open your phone and enter the photo gallery
4. There will be a new option on the bottom menu called import. Select this option
5. Choose all photos and/or videos you want to download onto your phone
6. Select import on the top right of the phone screen
7. A menu will appear, and you will need to choose to import selected or import all
8. Wait for files to finish

This method is the best out of the three because it provides the best quality of video, and it does it in the least amount of time.

Downloading the files directly from the drone is good when you have time and do not want to buy an extra adapter.

Keep in mind the last two options do provide you with the same quality, but one sacrifices time, and the other sacrifices money.

These two methods also work with any model of DJI drone. An SD is always involved and is therefore used in the same way no matter what.

Videos can be accessed and downloaded the same way onto a computer, but a phone allows you to always have them with you and show people what you have created.

Other Devices #

If you have an older model of DJI flying with the DJI Go 4 app (such as the Mavic Pro), there is one other method of downloading videos to your phone. It is done with a combination of the steps in the previous two methods.

The drone must be connected to your phone, but instead of downloading the photos directly from the app, another app developed by DJI allows for the same process.

All that you need to do is open the DJI sync app and connect to your drone. From there, you will have full access to the videos and photos on your drone’s SD card and be able to download and/or post them to social media.

This app is not required, but it does make the process much easier when using a model flying with the DJI GO 4 app.

Other drones #

Although most drones in the consumer market are made by DJI, there are still some that come from other companies.

If you are a pilot who wants to download videos to your phone from a different drone, that is still doable.

Most drones actually come with the capability of downloading media directly onto your phone when the drone is connected, but not all of them have the ability to do that.

However, as stated previously, every drone on the market requires a way to hold media.

In almost every case, this is done with an SD card or micro SD card.

In any model of drone, you can take the memory card out and insert it into an adapter for your phone to transfer media files across the platform.

Conclusion #

Drones are becoming an extremely easy-to-use technology, and when everyone has phones, downloading media becomes an important thing to know.

As easy as it is to download videos and photos to your phone, sometimes we may just not know how to do it.

As a pilot you should always strive to share what you know with others and help them understand even simple things like this.

Most edits can now be done on a smartphone, and the process of downloading the files on a computer to edit all of them is no longer necessary for a variety of videos.

Technology has come a long way, and hopefully, this article helped you learn how to use your phone and your drone together and give you an idea of how easy it can be to use this technology.