Seriously folks, it bugs me to no end to be fielding questions or seeing people on the GoPro Forums complaining about “Why won’t Quik for desktop work?” or “I can’t get GPS stickers working on Quik for desktop with my brand-new GoPro Hero 11!”. It’s got to stop folks, it really does.
Look, the simple fact is that Quik for desktop was abandoned by GoPro over 4 years ago at this point. The last camera it fully supported was the GoPro Hero 7. This means that in the year 2023, NO ONE should be using this software. What is the point of trying to use old, out of date, unsupported, discontinued that just plain doesn’t work at this point? If you are still trying to use this software, here’s the things you should know:
1: It won’t support GPS stickers on the GoPro Hero 8 or later. These GoPro’s were made after Quik for desktop was discontinued and these later cameras all store their GPS data in a completely different format. So Quik for desktop won’t be able to read GPS data for the Hero 8, Hero 9, Hero 10, Hero11 or Hero Max (or Hero Fusion for that matter as Quik for desktop never supported 360 media of any kind).
2: It likely won’t offload media from your GoPro Hero 8, Hero 9, Hero 10 or Hero 11. These GoPro’s were all made after Quik for desktop was discontinued and they use newer USB drivers that Quik for desktop was never designed to work with.
3: You’re likely to see the following error upon start-up “We have encountered an issue loading music, please restart application and try again“. This is because GoPro Quik for desktop music library had an expiry date of 2018 or 2019 (I believe, I’m not installing it just to find out). So therefore, if you try to install GoPro Quik for desktop now, the music licenses have all expired and Quik for desktop will just refuse to load.
4: Even if it somehow does load, GoPro Quik for desktop was never designed to support HEVC video and you’re likely to have playback and editing issues.
5: It’s not going to support your latest graphics cards, latest operating system or any of the hundreds of patches that your system has received since GoPro Quik for desktop was discontinued. So therefore, it’s likely to be prone to crashing and freezing.
Now, I do partially blame GoPro for this whole fiasco with Quik. You see, GoPro currently supports Quik for Android and iOS. It’s listed right at the top of GoPro.com under “apps”. However, problems arise when users wonder if there’s a “Quik” version for their PC or Mac, they do a search for “Quik for PC” and what do you know, suddenly a whole bunch of sites offer downloads for Quik for desktop. To make matters worse, even in the GoPro support forums, GoPro have very (unhelpfully) included a link to GoPro Quik for desktop under the title “Legacy software” and most users have no idea that “Legacy software” means “Old, out of date, discontinued, unsupported, software” and immediately go and download this software. They are then faced with the problem that Quik for desktop won’t work and won’t support their camera.
So what’s the solution?
Well, there’s good news on that front! There are many different free video editing software suites out there that users can choose from. For instance, among professional editors, the free version of DaVinci Resolve seems to be the most popular choice.
DaVinci Resolve 18 | Blackmagic Design
However, for those of you out there who prefer something much simpler, like a classic “Drag and drop” software suite, then there’s the open-source editor OpenShot.
OpenShot Video Editor | Free, Open, and Award-Winning Video Editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows!
This is actually very easy to use beginner software that’s also amazingly powerful and allows you to create stunning movies with very little editing experience or knowledge.
Then there’s the promise from GoPro themselves that there will be a new version of Quik for desktop being released this year. Of course, exactly “When” this year remains to be seen and I’m going to predict it will be the later quarter of the year.
In the meantime, if you really are desperate to edit video’s using “Quik” on a desktop PC. Then I suggest you buy a USB-C to HDMI cable, plug it into your phone (providing it supports this feature) and plug the HDMI cable into your monitor. Then just pair a Bluetooth mouse to your phone and edit away. Or if you have a Samsung phone (and the model supports it), download Samsung Dex for your PC and connect your phone to Windows. You can then run your Samsung apps (including Quik for Android) in a Windows emulation screen.
In the meantime, please for the love of all that’s holy, stop stop stop stop stop trying to use Quik for desktop. It’s old, outdated, unsupported, discontinued software that NO ONE should be using.
English