Kind of confused by some of the comments. You don’t have to hit the little Sentry mode button everytime you want to save something. Think maybe there’s confusion between TeslaCam and Sentry recording functions. TeslaCam should always be On/Recording (its the camera icon with the red light visible when on and recording). If you just inserted the usb device, you will need to touch the camera icon to turn it on but it stays on. If you set up the “TeslaCam” folder on the root level of the drive, it will create the appropriate files as it records.
Sentry mode is a feature of TeslaCam when the car is in Park. It is the big lens icon that looks like 2001’s HAL. While driving it will be dark/off. It is programmed to activate by default on Park when TeslaCam is on, or unless it’s turned off automatically by the special settings like while at home or at favorite places (settings in the Safety & Security screen). You don’t have to touch anything for it to record when something triggers it while parked (triggers being things like people or vehicles nearby or sometimes loud sounds that cause a vibration it detects like a motorcycle, car with really loud music). The triggering event will be in the last two minutes of the 10-minute recording btw.
Once TeslaCam has been turned On, until you disable it to remove for maintenance or check the files (make sure you pause it first before removing), it will be on automatically when you get in your car the next time to drive. If you are Driving and see something happen (like an accident or a new Model Y or Cybertruck drive past you!) and want to capture it, that’s when you would tap the Camera icon with the red light on it and you will see the download arrow. Give it a minute or two after the event to tap so TeslaCam can properly finish recording the recording minute or you could lose that last minute you wanted if it’s midstream recording. This Save function transfers 10 minutes of the last Driving video to a Saved Clips folder out of the 1-hr driving buffer. That is the only instance when you manually need to save anything, but it has nothing to do with Sentry files as those are automatically saved to a different folder in the TeslaCam folder.
