Tesla Sentry Mode Explained: How It Works, Setup, Footage & Limits

Sentry Mode is Tesla’s built-in security system for a parked car. It watches the area around the vehicle with the external cameras and sensors, reacts to threats with lights and the alarm, and records clips to a USB drive. This page explains how it works, how to set it up, where the footage goes and what it doesn’t do. We link to our detailed guides on notifications, battery drain and troubleshooting rather than repeating them here.

Unless noted otherwise, details come from Tesla’s Owner’s Manual Sentry Mode page (the same page exists for Model Y, S, X and Cybertruck). Menu names change between software versions, so your car may label things slightly differently.

Contents

• What Tesla Sentry Mode does
• What Sentry Mode doesn’t do
• How to turn on Sentry Mode
• Requirements and compatibility
• Recording and reviewing footage
• Sentry Mode notifications
• Live camera view
• Battery use
• Common problems
• Getting more from Sentry Mode with Sentry Pro

What Tesla Sentry Mode does

When Sentry Mode is armed, the car is locked and in Park, and it monitors its surroundings. What happens next depends on what it sees.

When it detects a threat, for example someone trying to open a door or trunk, or sudden jerky motion such as the car being towed or shaken, Tesla’s manual says Sentry Mode:

• pulses the headlights
• sounds the alarm
• shows a message on the touchscreen
• alerts you in the Tesla mobile app
• saves footage of the event to a USB drive, if one is installed

When it sees something it doesn’t treat as a clear threat, such as a person standing near the car, it records footage but doesn’t trigger the alarm and doesn’t send you a notification.

Two settings change this behavior:

• Camera-Based Detection (Controls > Safety > Sentry Mode > Camera-Based Detection). When it’s on, Sentry Mode uses the external cameras as well as the vehicle’s sensors to detect activity. When it’s off, the car only saves clips if a physical threat is detected.
• Disable Sentry Sounds (Controls > Safety > Disable Sentry Sounds). The alarm stays quiet, but Sentry Mode still notifies you through the app and saves the last 10 minutes of footage. If Pet Mode and Sentry Mode are on together, the car switches to this setting automatically to protect the animal inside.

You may have read about “Standby”, “Alert” and “Alarm” states. Those names come from Tesla’s 2019 launch announcement. They don’t appear in current owner’s manuals, so treat them as history, not a description of how the feature works today.

What Sentry Mode doesn’t do

• It doesn’t notify you about most of what it records. Tesla only pushes notifications for the alarm, door or trunk opening attempts, and sudden jerky motion. Anything else is recorded silently.
• It isn’t available in every situation. Camp Mode, Car Wash Mode and Service Mode all disable it, and so does Low Power Mode (see Common problems).
• It needs a USB drive to record. Without one you get alerts but no footage.
• It keeps footage for a limited time. Clips stay on the drive until the space is needed, and the oldest Sentry clips are deleted first.
• It uses battery the whole time it’s on. Tesla’s manual only says power consumption “may increase”. See Battery use.
• Tesla has no built-in schedule for it. You can turn it on automatically every time you park and exclude certain locations, but the manuals we checked have no time-based on/off schedule.

How to turn on Sentry Mode

There are three ways to turn it on:

1. Touchscreen: go to Controls > Safety > Sentry Mode and turn on the setting that enables Sentry Mode every time you leave the car. To turn it on or off only until your next drive, tap the Sentry Mode icon at the top of the touchscreen instead.
2. Tesla app: use the Sentry Mode control in the app. A manual change from the app or touchscreen lasts until your next drive.
3. Automatically when you park: with the auto-enable setting on, Sentry Mode arms each time you lock and walk away. With 2025.14.x software, Not a Tesla App reported that the menu now separates a one-time option from “whenever the vehicle is parked”. This change wasn’t in Tesla’s official release notes.

Location exclusions. In Controls > Safety > Sentry Mode you can stop it from turning on automatically at certain places:

• Exclude Home: your Home location in Favorites
• Exclude Work: your Work location in Favorites
• Exclude Favorites: every location in your Favorites list

The car has to be parked within about 500 m (1,640 ft) of the saved location. To set Home or Work, use Navigate > Set Home / Set Work. To save a Favorite, tap the star on an address in the map. If you turn Sentry Mode on or off yourself, from the touchscreen or the app, that overrides the exclusions until your next drive.

Check that Dashcam is on. Tesla’s manual says “Dashcam must be enabled for Sentry Mode to work” (Controls > Safety > Dashcam).

Requirements and compatibility

Vehicle state. The car must be locked and in Park. While Sentry Mode is on, the Security Alarm settings (Controls > Safety > Security Alarm) can’t be changed.

USB drive (to record). According to Tesla’s manual the drive must:

• hold at least 64 GB
• sustain a write speed of at least 4 MB/s
• be USB 2.0 compatible
• be formatted as exFAT, MS-DOS FAT (for Mac), ext3 or ext4. NTFS isn’t supported.
• have a base-level folder called TeslaCam

The simplest option is to let the car prepare the drive with Format USB Drive. It’s in Controls on Model 3, or Controls > Safety in the Cybertruck manual. This formats the drive as exFAT and creates the TeslaCam folders. It only works with a drive in a front USB port that has one partition or none. Tesla says vehicles built from about 2020 come with a pre-formatted drive in the glove box. On some cars built after about November 2021, the center console USB ports only charge devices, so use the glove box port for recording.

Cameras and hardware.

• Cybertruck records six views per clip: front, rear, left, right, left pillar and right pillar (Tesla docs).
• On HW4 Model S, 3, X and Y, the 2025.14 software update added the side (B-pillar) cameras to both Dashcam and Sentry clips (release notes via Not a Tesla App). HW3 cars didn’t get B-pillar recording, according to the same source.
• Tesla’s Model 3 manual says rear camera recording is only available on cars built after about February 2018.
• An older US Model 3 manual says live camera viewing isn’t supported on cars with Autopilot computer 2.0 or 2.5.

For a model-by-model look, see our Model 3 vs Model Y Sentry Mode comparison and Cybertruck Sentry Mode guide.

Recording and reviewing footage

Where clips are stored. The TeslaCam folder on the drive contains:

• RecentClips: rolling Dashcam footage, up to 60 minutes
• SavedClips: Dashcam clips you chose to save
• SentryClips: Sentry Mode events. When the drive runs low on space, the oldest Sentry clips are deleted.
• EncryptedClips: used when encryption is on

Tesla says storage ranges from as little as an hour on smaller drives to up to 24 hours on drives of 1 TB or more, so a bigger drive keeps footage longer. The Cybertruck manual (software 2026.20) also covers Encrypt Dashcam Recordings (Controls > Safety). Encrypted clips are decrypted at dashcam.tesla.com, and Tesla says “Dashcam clips are not sent to Tesla.”

On the touchscreen. Open the Dashcam app from the app launcher while in Park. Dashcam recording pauses while the Viewer is open. To delete everything, use Controls > Safety > Delete Dashcam Clips.

In the Tesla app. Recent manuals describe Security > Dashcam Viewer in the mobile app. It requires Premium Connectivity, and “View Live Camera from Mobile App” must be turned on in the car. The Cybertruck manual, software 2026.20 lists Tesla app 4.39.5+ on iOS and 4.43.5+ on Android. The feature launched in the 2024 Holiday Update.

Sentry Mode notifications

The Tesla app only notifies you when the alarm is triggered, when someone tries to open a door or trunk, or when sudden jerky motion is detected. Everything else Sentry Mode records, like someone leaning on the car or a cart bumping it, is saved without a push notification. The app also notifies you if Sentry Mode turns off because the car entered Low Power Mode.

In some regions, Tesla added notifications with a short video preview (Security & Drivers > Sentry Mode Recording Previews). Not a Tesla App reports that these need Premium Connectivity and a USB drive. They still only cover the same alarm-level events.

For a full breakdown, see Does Tesla notify you of Sentry Mode events? and its Tesla vs Sentry Pro comparison.

Live camera view

Live camera lets you see the cameras from your phone. The requirements below come from Tesla’s manuals:

• The Tesla app must be on a phone paired as a key.
• Turn on Controls > Safety > Sentry Mode > View Live Camera via Mobile App in the car.
• No one can be inside the car, and all doors must be locked.
• Viewing is limited to about one hour of total use per day (15 minutes in some regions).
• While someone is watching, the car periodically flashes its exterior lights and shows a message on the touchscreen.
• There’s no audio, and video quality depends on the car’s network connection. Tesla says the feed is encrypted and Tesla can’t access it.
• With Pet Mode also on, the live view can switch to the interior camera (app 4.15.0 or newer). Does Tesla record inside the car? covers what the cabin camera does and doesn’t record.
• Premium Connectivity: the April 2025 US Model 3 manual lists it as a requirement. The 2026.20 Cybertruck manual’s Sentry page no longer mentions it. Not a Tesla App still lists live camera as a Premium feature. Check your own app.
• The feature isn’t supported on Autopilot computer 2.0 or 2.5 (older US manual). It also doesn’t appear in the China-market manual we checked.

Battery use

Tesla doesn’t publish how much power Sentry Mode uses. It only says power consumption “may increase” while it’s on. In one independent measured test by Enhauto (May 2025), a Model 3 Highland with an LFP battery used 2.7 kWh over 12 hours of overnight street parking. That’s an average of about 225 W, or 36% down to 31%.

On current software, Sentry Mode turns off when the car enters Low Power Mode. That happens at 20% by default, and you can set it anywhere from 10% to 20%. Older software used a fixed 20% cutoff. For more measurements, cold-weather effects and ways to reduce the drain, see How much battery does Sentry Mode use?

Common problems

Most issues come down to a few causes:

• Sentry Mode turns off or won’t turn on. Low Power Mode (Controls > Charging > Low Power Mode, or automatic at your chosen threshold), Camp Mode, Car Wash Mode and Service Mode all disable it. A location exclusion can also stop it from turning on automatically.
• It’s on but not recording. Check that Dashcam is enabled, the drive meets the requirements above, there’s a TeslaCam folder, and the drive is in a USB port that handles data.
• You aren’t getting notified. Usually this is expected: Tesla only alerts you for the alarm, door or trunk attempts, and jerky motion.

Our Sentry Mode troubleshooting guide goes through each fix step by step. It includes a dedicated section on why Sentry Mode keeps turning off.

Getting more from Sentry Mode with Sentry Pro

Sentry Pro is an independent app that works alongside Tesla’s Sentry Mode. It doesn’t replace it.

• Notifications for Sentry Mode events, not only alarms. You get a push notification for the events your Tesla reports, typically within seconds. It can only notify you about what the car’s Sentry system detects and reports, so it can’t guarantee you’ll hear about every physical incident.
• iOS Critical Alerts that come through Silent Mode and Do Not Disturb (announcement), plus notifications on Android and Apple Watch.
• Event history of past Sentry Mode activity.
• Scheduled Sentry Mode that turns it on and off at set times, which Tesla doesn’t offer. See how scheduling reduces battery drain.
• Auto honk and light flash as an optional deterrent when Sentry Mode is triggered.
• No Premium Connectivity required. Sentry Pro doesn’t wake the car or poll it, so it adds no meaningful power draw beyond Sentry Mode itself.

Sentry Pro doesn’t show video. Tapping a notification opens the official Tesla app, where you can view footage or the live camera. It works with Model 3, Model Y, Cybertruck, and Model S and X from 2018 onward.

Try Sentry Pro free on iOS or Android.