How to View Video Metadata
A video file carries the same kind of hidden information a photo does — where it was filmed, when, and on what device — but none of it shows up when you play the clip. Below is how to look at it on Mac and Windows, starting with the panels already on your computer.
The fastest look, with nothing to install
- Mac: select the file in Finder and press ⌘I for Get Info — duration, codec, and dimensions. For the fields that matter to privacy, open Terminal and run
mdls yourvideo.mov. - Windows: right-click the file → Properties → the Details tab. Date taken, camera model, and — when Windows can read it — latitude and longitude.
Those panels miss fields on some files. When you need the complete picture, one command gives it to you on either platform:
exiftool yourvideo.mp4What You're Looking At
Video files don't use EXIF — that's a still-image standard. MP4 and MOV keep their metadata in container atoms inside the moov section; AVI uses RIFF INFO chunks. The practical consequence is that the same field has a different name depending on which tool you're reading it with, which is the main thing that makes video metadata confusing to look at:
| What it is | What it's called when you find it | Worth your attention? |
|---|---|---|
| Where you filmed | GPSCoordinates, ©xyz, location.ISO6709, kMDItemLatitude | Yes — this is the one |
| When you filmed | CreateDate, creation_time, Media Created | Often, down to the second |
| What you filmed on | Make, Model, com.apple.quicktime.make | Links your clips to each other |
| Software that touched it | Encoder, Software, handler tags | Rarely, on its own |
| Codec, bitrate, dimensions | Track headers, stream info | No — technical, not personal |
Most viewers show you the bottom row in glorious detail and the top row not at all. When you're checking a clip before you post it, the location atom is the only field you genuinely need to find — so the test of a good tool here is simply whether it surfaces that one.
How to View Video Metadata on a Mac
macOS has three built-in views, and they get progressively more honest:
Finder → Get Info
Select the clip and press ⌘I. The More Info section gives you dimensions, codecs, and duration. It will not show you GPS, so a clip that looks clean here can still be carrying your address.
QuickTime → Movie Inspector
Open the video in QuickTime Player and choose Window → Show Movie Inspector (⌘I again). Format, frame rate, data rate, duration. Useful for technical questions; the same blind spot on location.
Terminal → mdls (this one shows location)
mdls prints everything Spotlight has indexed about the file, and on a geotagged video that includes the coordinates:
mdls yourvideo.movLook for kMDItemLatitude and kMDItemLongitude. If they're there, the clip knows where it was shot. No install required — mdls ships with macOS.
How to View Video Metadata on Windows
File Explorer → Properties → Details
- Right-click the video and choose Properties.
- Open the Details tab.
- Scroll. Under Originyou'll find Media Created and the camera make and model; some files also expose latitude and longitude here.
This is the fastest check on Windows, but it is not a complete one. The Details tab only shows the properties Windows itself knows how to parse, and for some MP4 and MOV files it never reaches the embedded location atom. An empty GPS row here is not proof the file has no GPS.
MediaInfo (free, graphical)
MediaInfo is the standard free tool for inspecting a container. Its tree view lays out every track, codec, and general tag in the file. It is superb at the technical layer — reach for it when you want to know exactly what a file is. For the privacy fields specifically, verify with ExifTool below.
ExifTool (free, complete)
The one that misses nothing. Download it, then drop a video onto exiftool(-k).exe — or, from a command prompt:
exiftool yourvideo.mp4It prints every readable tag, GPS included, on MP4, MOV, and AVI alike. Add -G -a -s to see which metadata group each tag came from, which is how you tell an Apple location atom apart from a generic one.
Reading the Coordinate You Found
iPhone clips store location in ISO 6709 format, which looks alarming and isn't. ExifTool will report something like:
+37.7749-122.4194+010.000/Read it as three signed numbers run together, in order: latitude, longitude, altitude in meters. The sign is the separator — every + or - starts the next value. So that string is latitude 37.7749, longitude -122.4194, altitude 10 m. Paste 37.7749, -122.4194 into any map and you have the spot the clip was filmed, to within a few meters.
That is the whole trick, and it is why a video you never geotagged on purpose can still place you at home. Four or five decimal places is house-level precision.
Found Something? Here's How to Remove It
Viewing is the diagnosis; stripping is the fix. If you have ffmpeg, one line clears every container tag and copies the streams through untouched, so there is no re-encode and no quality loss:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -map_metadata -1 -c copy clean.mp4Then run your viewer over clean.mp4 and confirm the location is gone — checking your own work is the entire point of knowing how to view this stuff. For the no-Terminal routes on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android, our remove metadata from a video guide walks through each one.
Checking a Photo Instead?
Everything above is for video files, which need a desktop tool because of how their containers are built. Photos are easier — you can read them right here, in the browser, with nothing uploaded anywhere.
See what a photo is carrying.
GPS, capture date, camera and lens — read from the file in your browser. The image never leaves your device.
Open the EXIF ViewerRelated Guides
Remove Metadata From a Video
The other half of this page: stripping MP4, MOV, and AVI on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android.
EXIF Viewer
Read a photo's GPS, capture date, and camera details in your browser.
What Is GPS EXIF Data?
What a coordinate pair actually gives away, and how precise it really is.
Photo Privacy Guide
What your photos and videos reveal, and how to share them safely.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I view the metadata of a video file?
On Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties, and open the Details tab. On a Mac, select it in Finder and press Command-I, or run mdls yourvideo.mov in Terminal to see the GPS fields Finder leaves out. For the complete list of tags on either platform, run exiftool yourvideo.mp4 — it reads MP4, MOV, and AVI and misses nothing.
Can I see a video's GPS location?
Yes, if the clip was recorded with location enabled. ExifTool reports it as GPSCoordinates, mdls on a Mac shows it as kMDItemLatitude and kMDItemLongitude, and the macOS Photos app will draw it on a map. Windows File Explorer sometimes shows latitude and longitude in the Details tab, but it cannot read the location atom in every file.
Does video have EXIF data?
Not literally — EXIF is a still-image standard used by JPEG and TIFF. Video files hold the same kind of information elsewhere: MP4 and MOV store it in container atoms inside the moov section, and AVI uses RIFF INFO chunks. Because tools like ExifTool read both and report them side by side, people use the terms interchangeably. The privacy impact is identical.
Why does my video's Details tab show no GPS?
It may mean there is none — or that Windows simply cannot parse the location atom in that particular file. The Details tab only shows properties Windows knows how to read, so a blank GPS row is not proof the file is clean. Confirm with ExifTool before you assume a clip carries no location.
What does +37.7749-122.4194+010.000/ mean?
That is ISO 6709, the format iPhone videos use for location. Read it as three signed numbers run together — latitude, longitude, then altitude in meters — where each plus or minus sign starts the next value. This example is latitude 37.7749, longitude -122.4194, altitude 10 meters. Paste "37.7749, -122.4194" into a map to see the spot.
Can I view video metadata in my browser?
Our tools read photos, not video — video containers need a desktop tool like ExifTool or MediaInfo. Be careful with websites that offer to do it for you: uploading the clip hands their server the same GPS coordinates you were trying to check on. Every method on this page runs locally on your own machine.