GoPro Recording Time Calculator

What this page answers, and for whom

An action camera gets bought by people who are about to be somewhere they cannot buy another card. That is the whole reason this page exists.

• Choosing a card before a trip. Set the size, pick the mode you actually shoot, and see whether the day fits. Then read the section on why the real card runs out earlier.
• Choosing a mode for the card you already own. The table above moves with the capacity, so you can see what dropping from 5.3K to 4K, or from high bit rate to standard, buys you in hours.
• Checking whether a card is fast enough. The implied data rate column is the number the card has to sustain. Capacity and speed are different problems, and only one of them is about hours.
• Planning a multi camera day. Multiply by the number of cameras, then remember all of it has to be copied off somewhere that evening, at the same size.

How the arithmetic works, step by step

GoPro does not publish a bitrate for the HERO13 Black. It publishes recording times on a 128 GB card in its GoPro HERO13 Black capacity chart, and states that you may scale them to your own card size. Both halves of this page come out of that one fact.

Work one through. GoPro publishes 2 hours 45 minutes for 4K 30 at the high bit rate setting. That is 9,900 seconds. A 128 GB card is 1,024,000,000,000 bits. Divide and you get 103,434,343 bits per second, so about 103.4 Mbps, or 12.9 megabytes per second of continuous writing. On a 512 GB card the same mode runs four times as long, which is 11 hours.

The scaling is linear because the data rate does not change with the card. A bigger card is not a different camera. It is more room at the same speed.

What GoPro's own numbers reveal about the high bit rate setting

Read the published chart as a whole and something appears that no single row shows. At the high bit rate setting, nearly every demanding mode lands on the same recording time: 5.3K 60 gives 2:03, 5.3K 30 gives 2:04, 4K 120 gives 2:02, 4K 60 gives 2:03, 2.7K 240 gives 2:02, 1080p 240 gives 2:03. Six very different modes, all within two minutes of one another.

Those times all imply roughly 138 to 140 Mbps, which means the high bit rate setting behaves as a ceiling rather than as a rate chosen per mode. Modes heavy enough to reach the ceiling sit on it. Modes that do not need it record longer, which is why 4K 24 gives 3:17 and 1080p 30 gives 6:01.

That has a practical consequence worth having in your pocket. If the mode you are shooting already sits at the ceiling, moving to a heavier resolution costs nothing in recording time. Going from 4K 60 to 5.3K 60 on the high setting is the same 2:03 on a 128 GB card. The card cost is identical, so the decision becomes entirely about what you want in the edit and what your computer can play back.

Three cards, the same day

The same eight hour outing, planned three ways, using GoPro's published figures for 4K 30.

Standard bit rate, 53 Mbps. A 128 GB card holds 5 hours 22 minutes, so eight hours needs two cards or a 256 GB, which gives 10 hours 44 minutes and covers the day with margin.

High bit rate, 103.4 Mbps. A 128 GB card holds 2 hours 45 minutes. Eight hours of rolling needs about 373 GB, so a 512 GB card, which gives 11 hours.

1080p 30 standard, 24.8 Mbps. A 64 GB card holds 5 hours 43 minutes and a 128 GB holds 11 hours 27 minutes. If what you are making ends up on a phone screen, this row is the one that quietly saves the trip.

None of those numbers say anything about whether the camera will actually run for eight hours, which is a different problem covered below.

Where these times come from

GoPro publishes a support article listing recording time per mode for the HERO13 Black on a 128 GB card, at both the high and standard bit rate settings. GoPro also states in that article that you can multiply or divide the time relative to your card size. That is exactly what this calculator does: their numbers, scaled by the ratio between your card and 128 GB.

The last column of the table shows the data rate implied by GoPro's own figures. That is arithmetic on their numbers rather than a GoPro published rate, and it is here because it is useful: it tells you what your card has to sustain, and it lets you carry a GoPro mode into the general storage calculator alongside ProRes or Blackmagic RAW.

GoPro's own warning, which is worth repeating

GoPro states that these are estimates in a static environment and that the HERO13 Black bit rate is highly variable depending on the complexity of the scene. They also note that on older GoPro cameras the bit rate was consistent when you chose high or standard, and that this changed with the newer encoder.

In practice that means a mountain bike run through dappled forest light, which is the worst case an encoder can be handed, will eat the card faster than the chart says. A locked off timelapse of a calm horizon will beat the chart. Neither is a fault in the numbers. It is what variable bitrate means.

What GoPro published, unmodified

For the record, and so you can check this site against the source, here is the chart as GoPro printed it, in hours and minutes on a 128 GB card.

Choosing a card that keeps up

Two different requirements get confused here. Capacity decides how long you record. Sustained write speed decides whether you record at all. At 5.3K 60 with the high bit rate, GoPro's own figure implies roughly 139 megabits per second, which is about 17 megabytes per second of continuous writing. That is not a demanding number for a modern card, but the word that matters is continuous. Cards are advertised on their peak read speed, and peak read is the least relevant number on the label.

The other thing worth knowing is that a card that has been filled, deleted and refilled for two years does not behave like a new one. If a camera starts stopping recordings by itself, the card is usually the suspect before the camera is.

The card is usually not what stops you

This is the part that separates a chart from experience. Every number on this page assumes the camera keeps rolling until the card is full, and on an action camera it almost never does.

Battery. A GoPro battery does not last the eleven hours a 512 GB card holds at 4K 30 standard, and it is not close. GoPro publishes battery figures separately from the capacity chart, so this site does not carry them and will not guess at them. What matters for planning is the shape of the problem: you will change batteries several times before you change the card, so carry spares in proportion to hours rather than in proportion to gigabytes.

Heat. A small sealed body encoding 140 Mbps gets hot, and heat is the single most common reason an action camera stops on its own. It is worse in a fixed mount in the sun and better with airflow. The heavier the mode, the sooner it arrives.

Per clip and file system limits. Long recordings get written as a series of files rather than one continuous file. The footage is all there and joins cleanly, but if you were expecting a single two hour clip you will not get one.

The card itself, once it is old. A card that has been filled, deleted and refilled for two years does not behave like a new one. If a camera starts ending recordings by itself, suspect the card before the camera, and reformat in the camera rather than on a computer.

The honest summary is that capacity answers how much you can keep, not how long you can roll. Both matter. Only one of them is arithmetic.

Older GoPro models

This page covers the HERO13 Black, because that is the model GoPro publishes a full capacity chart for. If you shoot an older HERO, do not trust a chart written for a different encoder. Record thirty seconds in your exact mode, divide the file size in megabytes by the seconds, multiply by eight, and you have your real bitrate in Mbps. Put that number into the storage calculator and every answer becomes about your camera.

How many hours of 4K does a 128GB card hold on a GoPro?

GoPro publishes 5 hours 22 minutes of 4K 30 at the standard bit rate on a 128 GB card, and 2 hours 45 minutes at the high bit rate. At 4K 60 it is 4 hours 21 minutes standard and 2 hours 3 minutes high.

How long does a 256GB card record on a GoPro?

Twice as long as a 128 GB card in the same mode, which is the scaling GoPro itself recommends. At 4K 30 standard that is about 10 hours 44 minutes.

Are GoPro recording times exact?

No. GoPro states they are estimates in a static environment and that the HERO13 Black bit rate is highly variable with scene complexity. A busy scene records for less time than the chart says.

How much GoPro video can a 64GB card hold?

Half of whatever the 128 GB figure is, because the scaling is linear and that is the scaling GoPro recommends. At 4K 30 standard it is 2 hours 41 minutes, at 4K 30 high it is 1 hour 22 minutes, at 1080p 30 standard it is 5 hours 43 minutes, and at 5.3K 60 high it is 1 hour 1 minute. Set 64 in the card size box above and the whole table follows.

How long can a GoPro record continuously?

Not as long as the card holds, and the card is rarely the reason it stops. Battery life, heat in a small sealed body, and the fact that long recordings are written as a series of files rather than one all arrive before the media does. Treat the recording time on this page as how much footage you can keep, not as the length of a single take.

Why does my GoPro stop recording by itself?

Four usual suspects, in rough order of likelihood. The battery is finished. The camera has got too hot, which happens fastest in a heavy mode in a fixed mount in the sun. The card has aged badly, which shows up as recordings ending early on a card that used to be fine. Or the card cannot sustain the write speed the mode needs, which is the next question.

What does the SD card is too slow message actually mean?

It means the mode you selected needs a higher continuous write speed than your card is delivering. You can read the requirement straight off GoPro's own figures. The heaviest modes in the published chart, 4K 120 and 2.7K 240 at the high bit rate setting, imply about 17.5 megabytes per second of continuous writing. That is the peak this camera asks for, and it is not a large number by modern standards, but the word that matters is continuous. Cards are advertised on peak read speed, which is the least relevant figure on the packaging. Look for the sustained write rating, and note that a card can pass on the day you buy it and fail two years later.

What size SD card should I get for a GoPro?

Work backwards from a day rather than from a number. Decide the mode you will actually shoot, read the hours in the table above for each capacity, and buy the one that covers a day of that mode with something left over. Two smaller cards usually beat one large one on a real trip, because a card that fails or gets lost then costs you half the footage instead of all of it. Capacity is only half the decision. The other half is sustained write speed, which is what stops the camera mid take if you get it wrong.

Does the high bit rate setting look better?

It gives the encoder roughly twice the data to work with in the modes where it lands below the ceiling, and how much of that you can see depends entirely on the scene. Fast motion, water, dust, foliage and rain are where extra bits show up, because those are the frames a compressor struggles with. A locked off shot of a calm horizon will look the same either way and will cost you double the card. The cost is easy to read here: at 4K 30 the high setting takes a 128 GB card from 5 hours 22 minutes down to 2 hours 45.

Does this page work for a HERO12, HERO11 or older?

No, and using it for them would be inventing numbers. GoPro publishes this full capacity chart for the HERO13 Black, and also notes that older models held a consistent bit rate at each setting while the newer encoder does not. So an older camera is a genuinely different machine. Measure yours instead: record thirty seconds in your exact mode, divide the file size in megabytes by the seconds, multiply by eight, and put that figure into the storage calculator. It takes less time than searching for a chart that may not exist.