Recover Corrupted ProRes Files

ProRes is Apple's editing codec, written into a MOV container — by Atomos and other external recorders, by cameras that record ProRes internally, by iPhones (13 Pro and later), and by Final Cut or Premiere on export. When a ProRes recording is cut off before a clean stop — most often an external recorder losing power — you get a large, healthy-looking .mov that won't open in anything. The frames are still there. The index that maps them isn't.

This page is about the ProRes format. For a specific recorder, the camera guides at the bottom go deeper.

What ProRes actually is

Apple ProRes — a family of intermediate codecs in a MOV container: 422 Proxy, 422 LT, 422, 422 HQ, 4444, and 4444 XQ.
ProRes RAW is a separate RAW variant — recoverable in part (see the FAQ).
DNxHR / DNxHD (Avid's equivalent) often sit alongside ProRes on the same recorders, and are handled the same way.
The MOV moov atom — the index — is written only when recording stops cleanly.

What's in the file when it breaks

[ftyp]   ← MOV declaration, intact
[mdat]   ← all your ProRes frames + PCM audio, interleaved (often tens of GB)
[????]   ← the moov index that should be here is missing

The frames are there. The map is gone.

Why ProRes recordings corrupt

ProRes is most often recorded to an external recorder, and that's where most failures happen:

Battery exhaustion (NP-F / V-mount) on a long take.
D-tap or power cable working loose, or an AC brownout at a venue.
SSD ejected mid-write, or a sub-spec SSD that can't sustain a 4444 write rate.
Firmware crash on older recorder OS revisions.
In-camera ProRes (Canon Cinema EOS, iPhone ProRes) hit the same wall when the recording is interrupted.

What you can try first

The recorder's own rescue mode. Newer AtomOS has an "incomplete recording recovery" that runs on the unit — try it first.
untrunc (open-source). Built for this missing-index pattern; needs a healthy reference from the same recorder in the same mode.
ffprobe to see what FFmpeg reads.
Resolve, Final Cut, or Premiere directly — often more permissive than QuickTime.

Copy the file off the card to a working drive before any recovery attempt.

How our recovery handles ProRes

No reference clip required. Resolution, profile, frame rate, and four-cc come from the first valid frame.
All ProRes flavours — Proxy, LT, 422, HQ, 4444, 4444 XQ — plus DNxHR / DNxHD.
ProRes RAW — partial. The structural rebuild (container index) works in many cases; full RAW development depends on whether the camera metadata sidecar is intact.
Little-endian 24-bit PCM handled. Atomos units write LE PCM where MOV is normally big-endian; byte order is detected from the data, not assumed — the difference between clean audio and static.
Audio chunk placement handled so the recovered audio doesn't land with a ~0.5 s sync offset.
co64 for files over 4 GB, which is essentially every meaningful ProRes take.

What you do

Upload the ProRes file. Up to 50 GB.
About a minute later, a free 5-second preview.
Pay only if it works. Adjust the settings or escalate to a human if it doesn't.

FAQ

Which ProRes flavours do you handle? All of them — 422 Proxy, LT, 422, HQ, 4444, and 4444 XQ — plus Avid DNxHR / DNxHD recorded on the same units.

Can you recover ProRes RAW? Partially. Rebuilding the container index works in many cases, so you get a file that opens. But ProRes RAW carries camera-specific metadata for full RAW development; if that metadata is damaged you may have a playable file with a limited grading pipeline. The free diagnostic tells you which case you're in.

My recorded-on-Atomos file comes back as static, or audio is out of sync. Those are the two Atomos-specific quirks — little-endian PCM and audio chunk placement — and both are handled. If you still see it, escalate the case after upload and we'll rerun with adjusted parameters.

Does this work on in-camera ProRes (Canon Cinema EOS, iPhone)? Yes. It's the same ProRes-in-MOV structure regardless of what wrote it.

Do I need a healthy reference clip? No. The rebuild reads what it needs from the broken file's own frames.

Is my footage safe? The file sits on a server in France, is auto-deleted after 48 hours, and is never used to train anything or shared. Privacy policy.