DJI Mini 5 Pro – How To Transfer Content (Step by Step Guide for Beginners)

Good day, folks. Shawn here from Air Photography. In this video, I’m going to show you how you can transfer content from your DJI Mini 5 Pro to your smartphone, tablet, desktop, or laptop. This is a continuation of my beginner’s guide that I uploaded a few weeks ago. If you haven’t watched that yet and you’re brand new to the Mini 5 Pro and have never flown a drone before, I highly recommend watching that first. I’ll include a link to it in the description of this video.

Understanding Storage Locations

Before we get started, one thing I want to point out is that with the Mini 5 Pro, there are actually two different storage locations. We have 42 GB of internal memory, and then, of course, we have a memory card slot on the back. Depending on where your content is stored—whether on the internal memory or the memory card—some of the methods I’m going to show will work differently. I’ll be covering four different methods of getting content off the drone, and I’ll explain the differences as we go along.

Switching Between Storage Locations

Before we get too far into things, I’ll quickly show you how to switch between the internal memory and the memory card. There are three different ways to do this within the DJI Fly app.

The first is by tapping on the status indicator. If you scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see options for SD card and internal storage, allowing you to easily switch back and forth. If your memory card gets full or you’ve forgotten a memory card, you can select internal storage. While 42 GB is a bit limiting, it can save you in a pinch.

The second way is by tapping the storage indicator on the bottom right-hand side. Again, it lists the internal and memory card storage, and you can switch between them.

The third way is by going into settings, then camera. If you scroll down, you’ll see another option for switching between the SD card and internal storage.

One other thing to note: if you have it set to internal storage and you turn the drone off and back on with a memory card installed, it will detect the memory card and ask if you want to automatically switch.

Method 1: Using a Memory Card Reader

Now we’ll move on to actually transferring content. We’re going to start with the simplest method, which a lot of people use: simply removing the memory card. Keep in mind that this method will only allow you to transfer content stored on the memory card. If you have content on the internal memory, this method won’t work for that.

It’s as simple as plugging the card into some form of card reader and then connecting it to your device. I’m demonstrating on an iPad, but if you have a phone with a USB-C port—iPhone or Android—this will work exactly the same way. This method also works on a desktop or laptop. You can simply plug the memory card in, and on an iPad, launch the Files app. If you’re on Android, it’ll be similar but slightly different. You’ll see the SD card listed. You can go into it, and there’s all your content stored on the memory card. You can select it and then move it over to the tablet.

Method 2: Direct USB-C Connection

The second method is by plugging the drone directly into your device. Again, this works on tablets, smartphones, and even your desktop or laptop. All you have to do is take the USB-C cable that came with the drone, plug it into the USB-C port on the back of the drone, and then plug it into your device.

What’s really nice about this method is that you don’t have to power the drone on at all. The USB-C port will feed just enough power to make the drive active so you can read the content. The other nice thing about this method is that it will read from both the SD card and the internal storage. If you notice, it pops up in your locations, and if you have content stored on both, this is a great way to access both locations.

Again, you can go in just like you did when you had the memory card plugged in, and there’s all your content. You can select it and transfer it over. This works the exact same way on a desktop or laptop. You can plug the drone directly in, and your computer will be able to read the drives. Again, you don’t have to power on the drone.

Method 3: DJI Fly App with Off-State Quick Transfer

The next method is by using the DJI Fly app. The nice thing about it is that you can do it wirelessly—you don’t have to physically plug the drone in. When using the DJI Fly app, there are actually two methods you can utilize.

One of the new features of the Mini 5 Pro is something called off-state quick transfer. This essentially allows you to connect to the drone within 12 hours from the last time it was powered on. The nice thing is you don’t even have to power the drone on. However, you do have to make sure this feature is enabled in the settings. Go into settings, then camera control, and you’ll find that feature near the bottom of the menu.

This is a great method if you’ve been out flying and you’re on a bus on your way home or in a car. You can leave your drone in the camera bag, launch the DJI Fly app on your tablet or smartphone, and connect directly to the drone while it’s powered off.

Let me demonstrate. I’m going to launch my DJI Fly app. You can see the drone is powered completely off. Right away under quick transfer, you’ll see it has detected the Mini 5 Pro. Tap on it, and it will tell you that the Mini 5 Pro is in sleep mode. Tap on it again, and it will wake the device up. It’s not going to fully power it on—it’s just going to give it a little bit of power, enough to get the content off the drives. It will then ask you to join the Wi-Fi of the drone.

You’ll then come to the gallery view, which reads everything from both the internal location and the memory card. Using this method, you don’t have to switch back and forth. It will read everything from both locations all in one grid.

As a quick note, the very first time you use off-state quick transfer, it will ask you to confirm by pressing and holding the power button for 3 seconds. This is something you only have to do once. It just wants to make sure you’re connecting to the correct drone.

From here, you can go into each individual file and tap the download button at the bottom right-hand side to download it. What’s different here is that it will download to the Photos app. Unlike the previous methods where you plugged the drone or memory card in directly and had to use the Files app, using the DJI Fly app puts it right into the Photos app on your device.

The other nice thing about using this method is that you can do a trim download or a full download. When you click the download button, it gives you the option for full download or trim download. This can be a huge space saver, especially if you have limited storage on your device. You might have done a 30-minute flight recording, but you don’t want all that footage. There might be only a minute’s worth of footage that you want to download to share with somebody or put on social media.

If you want the whole thing, tap on full download. But you can select trim download, and as you can see, you can drag the timeline. You can add a mark-in point and a mark-out point. Now you just have a small section, and then you can tap download. It will now just download that small 10-second clip. This can be really important if you have limited space on your device or if you have a lot of footage and you don’t want it all on your device. You just want little segments because you’re going to put together a quick edit.

You can also do a batch download by tapping the icon at the top. Then you can select multiple files, or you can select whole date ranges just by tapping that button. The only thing is, when using batch select—if you’re not selecting one file at a time—that trim download feature is not available.

Once you’re done transferring content, just tap the lightning bolt icon at the top, hit exit, and that will disconnect from the drone and put it back to sleep.

Method 4: DJI Fly App with Powered-On Drone

The fourth method again uses the DJI Fly app, but say you’ve been out flying and you’re past that 12-hour window where you can connect to the drone without powering it on. You can still use the DJI Fly app. There’s just a little bit of an extra step.

Unfold the drone, and it will automatically power on. You can use the button on the side of the app, and you’ll see it will automatically connect right to the drone. Just like before, it brings up the gallery view so you can go in and download the content. You only really need to use this method if you’ve gone past those 12 hours and the drone can no longer be woken up while it’s powered off.

Important Notes About Wireless Transfer

I want to mention that using the Fly app method of transferring content wirelessly is only available on tablets and smartphones. You won’t be able to connect wirelessly directly to your computer. If you need to transfer content from your drone to your computer or laptop, the only two methods that work are by plugging the memory card in directly or by plugging the drone in directly.

So there you have it, folks—a quick tutorial on how to transfer content from your DJI Mini 5 Pro to your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Hopefully you enjoyed this video and found it valuable. Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​