How to see video metadata on Android

Samsung’s Gallery app has its own details panel, which works for videos as well as photos.

1. Open Gallery and tap the video.
2. Swipe up on it. The date and time appear at the top of the panel.
3. Tap the arrow at the bottom of the panel to see more, including the file name and, when the video has one, the location.
4. Tap Edit in the panel to rename the file or view its location information.

Samsung’s own help notes two limits. Gallery cannot change a video’s date or time. And for anything you downloaded, the date shown is when it arrived on your phone, not when it was filmed, which is why a clip saved from a chat can look as if it was recorded today.

If you need one of those hidden details, the dedicated pages explain them: codec, resolution, frame rate and HDR. Android phones are behind many “codec not supported” messages; this guide shows how to find which stream is the problem.

Stop new videos recording location

Location is added by the camera app, so the switch is in the camera’s own settings, and its name and place vary by phone maker. Turning it off only affects new recordings; videos you already have keep their location.

In Google Photos

• A location recorded by the camera cannot be edited or removed in Google Photos, according to Google’s help pages. Only estimated locations, or ones you added, can be changed or removed with More then Edit.
• In shared albums and conversations, the Share photo locations option controls whether others see the place. That hides it in Google Photos; it is not the same as cleaning the file you send elsewhere.

In Samsung Gallery

• When you share from Gallery, Samsung documents a Remove Location data option at the top of the share screen (One UI 3.0 and later). Samsung’s page describes it for photos, so check a shared video’s copy before relying on it.
• Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature has a Maximum restrictions mode that, according to Samsung, removes location data by default when you share pictures through Gallery’s share sheet.

Clean the file itself

To remove the location from a video file, or all metadata, before sending it anywhere:

1. Open Chrome on your phone, go to metadata.video and tap Open a file. Pick the video from your gallery or Files.
2. Tap Edit & clean, then Remove location only to keep the date and camera, or Remove all metadata to clear everything.
3. Tap Download new file. When “Your new file is ready” appears, What changed lists what was removed. Use Share to send it straight on.

MP4 files from Android phones are cleaned by rewriting only the metadata, so even long videos finish quickly and the picture is untouched. The location remover and the full remover explain exactly what each option clears. For photos, see removing metadata from a photo.

• The date is today’s. The clip was downloaded or received through a chat app. Samsung Gallery shows the download date for downloaded media, and many messaging apps send a new file without the original recording date.
• You changed the date in Google Photos but other apps disagree. Google says an edited date shows in Google Photos, while a shared or downloaded copy may show the original date the camera saved. The file itself was not changed. To change the date inside the file, use the video date changer.
• No location at all. Location was off in the camera, or the video went through an app that strips it. Where was this video taken? explains which files keep it.
• The size looks sideways. Phones often store portrait video as landscape with a rotation flag, so a portrait clip can be listed as 1920×1080.

Using metadata.video on Android needs a modern browser such as Chrome. The video is read on the phone; the only network requests are the street map tiles if you press Show street map, and the speech model if you choose Transcribe speech.