See and remove the metadata in a video
Drop a video to see what it records about itself: the date and time, the place, the phone or camera, and the codec, resolution, frame rate, and sound. Remove metadata makes a copy with all of that taken out and the video itself untouched.
The video’s metadata and properties appear here once one is open.
How to use it#
- Drop an MP4, MOV, WebM, or MKV onto the box above, or click it to choose one.
- Read what the file gives away, then the metadata in the Details list: the details Remove metadata takes out. The properties after that describe the video itself and stay in any copy. View on map opens the place it was recorded in a new tab.
- Press Remove metadata to make a copy without the date, place, device, or other tags, then download it.
What a video records about itself#
A phone writes the date and time into every video it records, with the time zone, and the make and model of the phone and the version of its software. With location turned on for the camera, it adds the position the video was recorded at, often to within a few metres, and an iPhone records how accurate that fix was. Editing apps add their own block of details, called XMP, which can name the app and the project. Photos keep these facts in EXIF. Videos have no EXIF, but an MP4 or a MOV holds the same facts as QuickTime keys, and this page reads them the way an EXIF viewer reads a photo.
The file also describes its own contents: the container, the codec of the picture and the sound, the resolution, the frame rate, the bitrate, and whether the picture is HDR, as iPhone videos are by default. Those are what decide whether a video will play on a given device, and which of the other video tools it needs.
Finding where a video was taken#
When a video has a position, the Location section shows its coordinates in decimal degrees, the form a map search box takes, and in degrees, minutes, and seconds. View on map opens the spot on OpenStreetMap in a new tab. Nothing leaves this page until you press it, and then only the coordinates.
No Location section means the file has no position in it. That is normal for a screen recording, for a camera without GPS, and for a video that has been through a messaging app or a social network, most of which take the metadata out or re-encode the video. A position is also only as good as the fix the phone had, so indoors it can be out by a street or more.
Removing the metadata#
Remove metadata writes a new copy of the video with every tag left out: the date and time, the place, the device, the software, and any XMP block. The picture and the sound are copied across without being re-encoded, so the copy looks and sounds exactly the same and takes a second or two to make. The page then reads the copy back and says whether anything was left in it.
The copy keeps the container the original had, so a MOV stays a MOV. A spatial audio track from a newer iPhone is the one thing that cannot be copied, because no browser reads its format; the normal stereo track is kept, and the page says so when it happens.
Frequently asked questions#
How do I see where a video was taken?
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Drop the video in. If it has a position, the Location section shows the coordinates, and View on map opens them on a map. No Location section means the file has no position in it, which is usual for videos that have been sent through a messaging app.
How do I find out when a video was recorded?
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Drop it in and read the Recording section. A phone video shows Recorded, the moment it was filmed with its time zone. Other files may only have Created, a UTC time set by the app that wrote the file, which is often when it was last saved or exported rather than when it was filmed.
How do I remove the location from a video?
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Drop it in, press Remove metadata, and download the copy. The location goes along with the date, the device, and every other tag. To stop the location being recorded in the first place, turn off location access for the camera app in your phone's settings.
Does removing the metadata reduce the quality?
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No. The picture and sound are copied into the new file as they were, without being decoded or compressed again, so the copy is identical to watch and about the same size.
Can I see the metadata of an iPhone video?
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Yes. Drop the MOV straight in. The page shows the date with its time zone, the iPhone model and iOS version, the location and its accuracy, and whether the video is HDR. A video sent from an iPhone in a message has often lost some of this on the way.
Why does my Mac show a Where from address on the downloaded file?
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That is macOS, not the file. When a browser saves a download, the Mac notes where it came from beside the file, and here that is the page's temporary address, starting with blob. It is not written inside the file, so it does not travel when you email, upload, or share it from most apps, though copying it to another Mac can take it along. To clear it, run xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms followed by the file's name in Terminal.
Is my video uploaded?
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No. The video is read inside this browser tab, and the copy without metadata is made there too. The only thing that can leave the page is the map, which opens in a new tab when you press View on map and receives the coordinates alone.