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Video metadata

How to remove metadata from a video

Phones write where a video was recorded into the file, with the phone's make and model, its software and the time. None of it shows when the video plays. hexscope shows it and saves a copy without it, in your browser, without re-encoding the video. The video is not uploaded anywhere.

Check a video Try a sample video

1 What a video says

  • Where it was recorded, often to within a few metres. An iPhone writes it in the movie's QuickTime metadata, an Android phone in its user data, some cameras in a location box of their own.
  • The phone or camera: its make and model.
  • When: the date and time it was recorded, and the creation and change times that every MP4 keeps in its headers.
  • The software: the phone's system version, or the app that saved it last.
  • Who: an author's name, if one was set.
  • XMP: the editing history and the author, as video editors write them.

2 Remove it

Open the video in hexscope. It reads MP4 and QuickTime (.mov) files, and M4A sound, up to 2 GB; a long video opens quickly, as the picture and sound are not loaded to read what is around them. Under What this video reveals, press Remove it — save a clean copy. In the copy:

  • every metadata item is blanked where it lies, so the file keeps its size and its layout;
  • the creation and change times in the headers become zero;
  • the picture and sound are copied byte for byte: nothing is re-encoded, nothing loses quality.

Then press Open the clean copy and check that nothing is left.

Action cameras and dashcams can record a whole route as a track beside the picture. hexscope does not read such tracks: turn the GPS off in the camera's settings, or remove the track in a video editor.

3 On the phone

  • iPhone: when you share a video, tap Options at the top and turn off Location. To stop the camera adding it: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never.
  • Android: in the camera app's settings, turn off the option to save the location. Its name depends on the phone's maker.

Apps that recompress a video usually drop this data on the way. Everything that sends the file as it is keeps it: email attachments, cloud links, AirDrop, and messaging apps when you send the video as a file.

4 Many videos at once

Choose several videos, or drop a folder on the page, and Save clean copies saves them as one ZIP. For videos larger than a browser takes, the command line tool cleans files of any size on your own computer, without holding them in memory:

hexscope clean --verify --out clean/ videos/

Check a video now Your files never leave your browser.