Does editing metadata reduce the video’s quality?
No. The compressed video and audio are copied unchanged into the new file. Only the descriptive data around them is rewritten, so the picture and sound are identical to the original.
Free · runs in your browser
Edit the metadata inside a video file
Change the title, recording date, map location, camera fields and track names, then save a copy with the same picture and sound. Your file stays on your device.
To edit a video’s metadata, open the file here, change the fields you need in the Edit & clean panel (title, description, recording date, location, camera make and model, track names) and press Download new file. You get a copy with your changes and the same video and audio as before; nothing is compressed again.
The editor reads everything the file already says before you touch it, so you can see what is wrong first: a date of 1 January 1970, a title left by an editing app, a location you would rather not share. Every field has an explanation next to it, and after saving, What changed reads the new file back and lists what was removed, changed or added.
It runs entirely in your browser, with no account and no upload. MP4 and MOV files are changed by rewriting only their metadata boxes, which takes a moment even for a long 4K clip. For format-specific detail, see the MP4 metadata editor and the MKV metadata editor; for wiping a file clean instead, see remove metadata from video.
How to edit video metadata
Open the video
Drop the file on the page or press Open a file (Ctrl/Cmd+O). It is read on your device; MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI and most other formats open.
Check what is there
Look through Overview, Date & time, Location and Device in the inspector. Press
/to search every field if you are looking for one value.Change the fields
In Edit & clean (a button on phones, a panel on the right on computers), edit Title, Description, Comment, Recorded, Location, Make, Model or any other field. Leave a field as it is to keep it.
Save the new file
Press Download new file (Ctrl/Cmd+S). When “Your new file is ready” appears, open What changed to confirm each edit, or press Inspect new file to look at the copy in full.
What you can change, and where it ends up
A video file keeps its descriptive data in a few different places depending on its container. The editor shows one set of plain labels and writes each one where that kind of file keeps it. The table lists the usual home of each field and the software most likely to show it to you.
| Field here | In MP4 and MOV | In MKV and WebM | Where people usually see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | ©nam, or the com.apple.quicktime.title key | Segment title | Windows Details (Title), VLC’s media information, media libraries |
| Description | desc or com.apple.quicktime.description | A DESCRIPTION tag | Library apps; few players |
| Comment | ©cmt or com.apple.quicktime.comment | A COMMENT tag | Windows Details (Comments) |
| Artist | ©ART or com.apple.quicktime.artist | An ARTIST tag | Windows Details (Contributing artists) |
| Recorded | Movie and track headers, ©day, com.apple.quicktime.creationdate | The segment date | Photo libraries when they import the clip |
| Location | ©xyz or com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709 | No standard field | Map views in photo apps, the Location section here |
| Make, Model, Software | com.apple.quicktime.make, .model, .software | No standard field | Photo apps’ info panels |
| Keywords, Genre, Copyright | keyw, ©gen, cprt and matching keys | Tags of the same names | Library and tagging apps |
Beyond these, you can set the Rotation flag (a display hint, not a change to the pixels), add or remove 360° metadata, set cover art, edit chapters, and rename tracks or mark them Default or Forced. Remove track drops subtitle and data tracks you no longer want.
Edited without re-encoding
Changing a title should never cost picture quality, and here it does not. How the new file is put together depends on the container, but in every case the compressed video and audio are carried over as they are.
- MP4, MOV, M4V and 3GP: only the metadata boxes are rewritten. The video and audio data are copied byte for byte, so saving is close to instant at any file size, and the copy is usually within a few kilobytes of the original.
- MKV, WebM, AVI and other containers: the file is rebuilt around the same streams with ffmpeg.wasm, a version of FFmpeg that runs in the browser (about 10 MB, served from this site and loaded only when needed). Nothing is re-encoded, but the container itself is new, so this takes longer on big files.
- Chapters, track names and flags, and MKV titles also go through ffmpeg.wasm, whatever the container.
| Container | What it can hold | What is switched off |
|---|---|---|
| MP4, MOV, M4V, 3GP | Every field above, plus cover art, 360° metadata and chapters | Nothing |
| MKV, WebM | Title and other tags, recording date, track names, languages, flags, chapters | Location, device fields, cover art, 360° (no standard place for them) |
| AVI, MPEG-TS | Title and comment at most | Almost everything else |
The editor changes what the file says about itself. It cannot change what is visible in the picture, such as a date stamp burned into the frame, and it does not change the dates your computer’s file system shows (the downloaded copy gets today’s date there).
Which programs actually read these fields
Editing a field is only useful if the software you care about reads it, and support is patchy. Before spending time on descriptions and genres, check where the file is going.
Windows File Explorer
Right-click the file, choose Properties and open Details. For MP4 files Explorer shows a short list (Title, Comments, Contributing artists, Year, Genre and the like) and ignores many other tags. MKV files show very little. The Windows guide explains why fields can look blank there even when they exist.
Mac, iPhone and photo libraries
Finder’s Get Info shows technical facts such as dimensions and codecs rather than tags. The iPhone Photos info panel shows the device, the date and a map, which come from the date, make, model and location fields; see how to see video metadata on iPhone. Photo libraries generally take the recording date when they import a clip, so a clip already in the library keeps its old date until you import the new copy.
Media servers and players
Plex, Jellyfin and Kodi mostly name films and episodes from online databases and file names; embedded titles are used only in some library setups. They do read track languages, track names and the Default and Forced flags, which is why the MKV editor matters most for home media. VLC shows the title, artist, description and other tags in its media information window.
The same edits with ExifTool or FFmpeg
If you edit metadata often, or need to change hundreds of files at once (the browser editor works one file at a time), the command line is the better fit. Two common tools:
exiftool -ItemList:Title="Harbour at dawn" -ItemList:Comment="Shot from the north pier" clip.mp4
ExifTool writes the tags in place and keeps a backup named clip.mp4_original unless you add -overwrite_original. It understands every MP4 and MOV tag family listed above.
ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 -map 0 -c copy -metadata title="Harbour at dawn" -metadata comment="Shot from the north pier" edited.mp4
FFmpeg’s -c copy keeps the streams unchanged while building a new file, the same approach this site uses for MKV. It can drop tracks it does not know how to write, such as some camera telemetry, so compare the result before deleting the original. The ffprobe guide shows how to read the tags back.
Video metadata editor: questions
Can I change the date a video was recorded?
Yes. Set Recorded, choose the Time zone, or use Shift by to move every date by a number of hours. Check and change a video’s date explains which dates a file holds and why they go wrong.
Can I add or change a video’s location?
Yes, in MP4 and MOV files. Type a latitude and longitude into Location, or use Pick on the map; Clear location removes it. MKV and WebM have no standard location field, so the option is switched off for them.
Does adding a title, tags or a description help YouTube SEO?
Not in any documented way. YouTube takes the title, description and tags you enter in YouTube Studio; embedded file tags are not a documented ranking factor. Edit them for your own library, not for search.
Can I edit several videos at once?
No, the editor works on one file at a time. For batches, ExifTool or FFmpeg on a computer are better suited; the commands above are a starting point.
Why does Windows still show the old title?
Explorer reads only some MP4 tags and caches what it has read. Make sure you are looking at the downloaded copy rather than the original, then reopen Properties. For MKV files Explorer shows almost no tags at all.
Is my video uploaded when I edit it?
No. The file is read and rewritten in your browser. The only network requests the tool can make are the ones you ask for, such as Show street map, which loads OpenStreetMap tiles.