What metadata is in a video file — and what it gives away
Where and when it was shot, on which phone, with which apps — sometimes an AI label. What a video file stores, who can read it, and how to share it without that.
A video file carries more than pictures and sound. Next to the frames sit a few dozen lines of details: when it was recorded, where, on which phone, which apps touched it — and sometimes a label saying AI was involved.
You never see them while the video plays. But anyone who gets the original file can read them in a minute, and platforms read some of them when you upload. Here's what's stored, where it hides, what it can reveal, and how to share a video without it.
What a video file stores besides the picture
The details fall into six groups. A phone fills in the first four on every recording.
- Time. When the recording started, in UTC — and on an iPhone also the local time with its time-zone offset. Editing apps add the time they exported.
- Place. GPS coordinates: latitude, longitude, usually the altitude and how accurate the fix was. Precise enough to point at a building.
- Device. The phone's maker and model, its operating system version and, on recent iPhones, which camera and lens recorded it.
- Software. The apps that wrote the file. Converters sign their work: FFmpeg writes
Lavfand its version, HandBrake writes its name and version, and Adobe apps add an XMP record of the tool and the edits. - Technical details. Codec, resolution, frame rate, bitrate, color space, rotation and the audio format — what a player needs to play the file.
- Provenance and AI labels. C2PA Content Credentials (a signed record of the tools and edits), the IPTC “digital source type” in XMP and, in files from apps made for China, AIGC labels.
Where it lives inside the file
An MP4 or MOV file is a set of nested boxes. One says what kind of file it is (ftyp), one holds the frames and the sound (mdat), and one holds the index (moov): the tracks, their timing and their codec settings. The details sit in that index and in a few boxes made for everything else: udta (user data), meta and uuid.
The recording time is in the index itself, counted in seconds from January 1, 1904 — QuickTime's starting point. The rest depends on what wrote the file:
- iPhone (.MOV)
- com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709…make…model…software…creationdatecamera and lens
- Android (.MP4)
- ©xyz — the locationcom.android.versionmaker and model, on some phonescapture frame rate
- Editors and converters
- encoder name and versionXMP: the tool and its editsC2PA manifest
An iPhone's location looks like this: +52.2297+021.0122+112.400/ — latitude, longitude and altitude in meters, in the ISO 6709 format. It's plain text; no special software is needed to read it.
What it can give away
- Where you live or work. A video filmed at home carries your home's coordinates. Send the original file to someone, or post it somewhere that keeps files as they are, and the address travels with it.
- Your routine. The dates and times across a few videos show when you're where.
- What you use. The phone, its software version and every app in the chain — useful to a support team, and more than you'd tell a stranger.
- An AI label you didn't earn. One AI-assisted step, such as generative fill on a single shot, can write a tag that marks the whole file as AI-made when you upload it. Why real videos get labeled AI
The picture shows what you filmed. The metadata shows where, when and with what.
Who can see it
Anyone who gets the original file: by AirDrop, email, a Google Drive or Dropbox link, a USB stick, or a messenger that sends it as a document instead of compressing it. A client who receives your raw clips receives the details too.
Platforms work differently. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube receive the original when you upload, then re-encode it; none of them publishes exactly which details the copy viewers stream keeps. Either way, the platform reads the original first: TikTok reads C2PA Content Credentials, and Meta reads C2PA and IPTC tags, to decide whether a post gets an AI label. YouTube uses the same credentials the other way round — to show “Captured with a camera” on a video they vouch for.
How to check your own videos
- iPhone. Open the video in Photos and swipe up: the date, the place on a map, the camera and the format.
- Android. Open it in Google Photos and swipe up for the details: date, place, size and resolution.
- Mac. In Photos, Window → Info shows the place. QuickTime Player's Movie Inspector (⌘I) shows the technical side.
- Windows. Right-click the file → Properties → Details: the date it was made, length, frame size, frame rate and bitrates.
Those views show a part. To see every tag, run a free tool such as ExifTool (or ffprobe, part of FFmpeg) on your computer:
exiftool -a -G1 IMG_4821.MOVBe careful with online metadata viewers that upload your video: to find out what a file gives away, you'd be handing the file over.
How to share a video without the extras
- Switch Location off when you share. On an iPhone, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and turn Location off. It applies to that share.
- Stop saving locations. iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never. Android: in the camera app's settings — Save location on a Pixel, Location tags on a Samsung.
- Export a new file. A file written from scratch carries only what the app writing it puts in. Not every converter starts clean: FFmpeg copies the source's general tags unless you add
-map_metadata -1.
What Remuxe writes
Remuxe builds every export as a new file, in your browser — the video is never uploaded. Nothing from the original's container is copied: not its location, its dates, its apps' history, or its C2PA, XMP and AIGC tags. The copy holds what Remuxe writes: the tracks, their timing, the copy's own device details, and a location only if you pick one in Edit → Details.
Invisible watermarks inside the picture are a different thing, and Remuxe leaves them alone. Why we don't remove AI watermarks
Questions
Do TikTok and Instagram remove the metadata?
Neither says so. They re-encode the video for viewers, but they don't publish which details the streamed copy keeps. They still receive the original, and they read its provenance tags for AI labels, so remove the location before you upload if it matters.
Does a screen recording remove it?
A screen recording is a new file with its own details — the time and the device of the recording — not the original's location. It also costs quality: it's a copy of the screen, not of the video.
Can metadata be wrong?
Yes. Plain tags are text anyone can edit, and a phone with a wrong clock writes a wrong date. C2PA Content Credentials are signed, so editing them breaks the signature instead of faking it.
Is metadata the same as a watermark?
No. Metadata sits next to the frames and goes away when a new file is written. A watermark — visible, or invisible like Google's SynthID — is part of the pictures or the sound themselves.