Arlo-Downloader

Automatically download your videos from Arlo for long-term storage.

Introduction

In the free tier of Arlo, customers are entitled to keep up to 7 days of recording in Arlo "cloud" storage. After 7 days, the recordings are deleted. In order to ensure the camera recordings are permanently backup'ed, we'll automate the downloading of the videos.

Features

• Downloads all recordings available from Arlo cloud storage locally.
• Handles TFA with EMAIL or PUSH methods (see below and instructions for EMAIL type)

Requirements

• Arlo cameras and My Arlo account, obviously.
• Docker (if you are new to Docker, see Installing Docker and Docker Compose)
• Arlo Mobile App, if using TFA with PUSH method.

Instructions

Create a dedicated user for Arlo API Access

Although not mandatory, it is STRONGLY recommended to create a dedicated, less-privileged user in My Arlo that will connect to the API.
This way your main account is not used by Arlo Downloader and access can be revoked if needed.

• Connect to my.arlo.com with your regular username and password.
• Go to Settings, then Grant Access section.
• Add a friend with button Add then fill in required information. This will effectively create a new user attached to your main account.
• Select the cameras you wish to have access to.
  • Important: Downloading recordings does not require Allow Access Rights to be ticked. Leaving it unticked creates a read-only account.
• Click Send Invite and follow instructions sent by email to set-up new account and password.
  • Note: if you use the default Push auth method for TFA, log-in once with the new account in the mobile Arlo App and trust the device, so you can receive push notifications on this device.

Create the container

Parameters

Mandatory

Parameter	Function
-e ARLO_USERNAME	The username required to access Arlo API
-e ARLO_PASSWORD	The password for the username above
-v /records	Storage for downloaded records

Optional

Parameter	Function	Default
-e TFA_TYPE	Arlo TFA type. Currently only supports push,email	push
-e TFA_SOURCE	Arlo TFA type. Currently only supports push,imap	push
-e TFA_RETRIES	Arlo TFA retries.	10
-e TFA_DELAY	Arlo TFA Delay between each check	5
-e TFA_HOST	TFA_TYPE=EMAIL + TFA_SOURCE=imap only Instructions
-e TFA_USERNAME	TFA_TYPE=EMAIL + TFA_SOURCE=imap only Instructions
-e TFA_PASSWORD	TFA_TYPE=EMAIL + TFA_SOURCE=imap only Instructions
-e DEBUG	Set to 1 to enable debug logs	0

Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)

You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__.

As an example, instead of using -e ARLO_PASSWORD, you can set the following environment variable:

-e FILE__ARLO_PASSWORD=/run/secrets/myarlopassword

It will then set the environment variable ARLO_PASSWORD based on the contents of the /run/secrets/myarlopassword file.

docker-compose

Create a file called docker-compose.yml with the following content:

version: "2.1"
services:
  arlo-downloader:
    image: diaznet/arlo-downloader:latest
    build: .
    container_name: arlo-downloader:latest
    environment:
      - ARLO_USERNAME=<api_username>
      - ARLO_PASSWORD=<password>
    volumes:
      - /path/to/videos:/records
    restart: unless-stopped

Note: you are also going to need the various TFA_* environmetn variables if yu have 2FA activated on your account.

Build and start the docker containers with docker-compose up. To run the containers in the background add the -d flag:

docker-compose up --build -d

docker cli

docker run -d \
  --name=arlo-downloader \
  -e ARLO_USERNAME=<api_username> \
  -e ARLO_PASSWORD=<password> \
  -v /path/to/videos:/records \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  diaznet/arlo-downloader:latest

Once the container is started, it will first download into /path/to/videos all available recordings from the API.
If files already exist, they will not be replaced.
It will then run indefinitely and download any new recording as soon as it becomes available in the API.

Default Naming scheme:

<year>/<month_number>/<year>-<month_number>-<day_number>T<hour>:<minute>:<seconds>_<device_name>_<device_serial_number>

Manual Script run

The script can also be ran manually.

usage: arlo-downloader.py [-h] [-d] [-m SAVE_MEDIA_TO] [-t {PUSH,EMAIL}] [-s {push,imap}] [-r TFA_RETRIES]
                          [-T TFA_DELAY] [-H TFA_HOST] [-U TFA_USERNAME] [-P TFA_PASSWORD]

Download records from Arlo Cameras.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug           Enable Debug messages. Can also be set with environment variable DEBUG=1
  -m SAVE_MEDIA_TO, --save-media-to SAVE_MEDIA_TO
                        Save Media naming scheme without extension (default = '/records/
                        ${Y}/${m}/${F}T${t}_${N}_${SN}')
  -t {PUSH,EMAIL}, --tfa-type {PUSH,EMAIL}
                        Set TFA type (default = 'PUSH')
  -s {push,imap}, --tfa-source {push,imap}
                        Set TFA source (default = 'push')
  -r TFA_RETRIES, --tfa-retries TFA_RETRIES
                        Set TFA max retries (default = 10).
  -T TFA_DELAY, --tfa-timeout TFA_TIMEOUT
                        Set TFA timeout (default = 5).
  -H TFA_HOST, --tfa-host TFA_HOST
                        (EMAIL/imap only) Set TFA host (default = ).
  -U TFA_USERNAME, --tfa-username TFA_USERNAME
                        (EMAIL/imap only) Set TFA username (default = ).
  -P TFA_PASSWORD, --tfa-password TFA_PASSWORD
                        (EMAIL/imap only) Set TFA password (default = ).

Disclaimer

This application comes without warranty. Please use with care. Any damage cannot be related back to the author.

Todo's

• Ability to customize video filenames / filepath

Credits

Author: Jeremy Diaz
This container uses pyaarlo 0.8 library.