A crash during a MOV recording costs you the entire file
Everything, for the same reason as MP4. MOV and MP4 are the same underlying format with different labels, and both write their index once, at the end.
A crash costs you
The whole recording
Index is written
Once, at the end
Editable directly
Yes
Drop the recording that will not open
Any QuickTime MOV .mov file, however large.
Nothing is uploaded
The check runs entirely in this tab. Your browser reads a few hundred kilobytes of headers from the start and end of the file and never sends any of it anywhere — you can watch the network tab, or turn off your Wi-Fi and run it again.
What you will get back
- Which container OBS actually wrote, and whether it writes its index as it goes or only at the end.
- How many hours and minutes of footage are still readable, measured from the timestamps inside your file — not estimated from its size.
- The exact command that turns it back into a file you can play, and what that command will and will not recover.
Why QuickTime MOV behaves this way
QuickTime's container became the basis for MP4, so it carries the same structural assumption: the file is finished before anyone reads it. A crash leaves the same undescribed payload and the same unopenable file.
How to get a playable file back
untrunc -s reference.mov broken.movSame rebuild as MP4, and the same requirement: the reference recording must come from identical OBS settings or the reconstructed index will not match the data it points at.
Editing .mov
Native in Final Cut Pro and well supported everywhere else. That convenience is the only argument for it.
QuickTime MOV questions
- Is MOV safer than MP4 for OBS recording?
- No. They share the same index design and the same failure. Nothing about the .mov extension makes a crashed recording more recoverable.
- Final Cut wants MOV. What should I record to?
- Record fragmented MP4 and remux to MOV afterwards with -c copy. You keep crash safety during the recording and hand Final Cut the container it prefers, with no quality loss.
Stop needing this page
The container decides how much you lose. A second copy decides whether it matters.
WeaverClip records fragmented segments and uploads each one while you are still live, verifying byte count and MD5 before anything leaves your disk. Free holds 10 GB for 30 days without a card.