This paper centers on examining the mechanical properties of 7×7 configuration superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) cables, featuring a single wire diameter of 1.0 mm. The primary emphasis is on assessing their recovery capability and energy dissipation capacity. A detailed investigation on the effects of the heat treatment strategy, strain amplitude, cyclic loading, pre-training, and loading rate of the SMA cables on their mechanical performance—residual strain, energy dissipation, equivalent viscous damping ratios, strength, and stiffness—was conducted. Furthermore, the tensile strength and ultimate strain of SMA cables and SMA wire were compared by monotonic tensile test. The results show that the SMA cable has excellent superelasticity after annealing at 400 °C for 10 min, and the strain recovery rate reaches 91.7 %. Under the constant strain amplitude loading and unloading training, the mechanical properties of SMA cable gradually tend to be stable, which should be considered in engineering application. The recovery ability of SMA cable can be significantly improved by pre-training. The residual deformation of specimens without heat treatment and annealed for 10 min is reduced by 47 % and 41 % respectively after pre-training. When the loading rate is greater than 5 × 10-4^s-1^{, the hysteresis loop shape of SMA} cable is not sensitive to the change of loading rate. Compared with SMA wire, SMA cable has better ductility and robustness, which is suitable for providing sufficient restoring force in the case of large deformation. The test results provide experimental data support for the engineering application of SMA cables.