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Three built-in ways to read a video’s details on macOS, what each one shows, and where to look for the fields Apple keeps out of sight.
To see a video’s metadata on a Mac, open it in QuickTime Player and choose Window > Show Movie Inspector (Command-I) for the format, resolution, frame rate, HDR format and data rates. For a quick look without opening it, select the file in Finder and choose File > Get Info; for the full list Spotlight has indexed, run mdls on the file in Terminal.
If the video is in your Photos library, select it and press Command-I in Photos to see the device, date and location. Between them these cover most everyday questions. What macOS does not show anywhere is the deeper layer: the codec profile and Dolby Vision details, the time zone, every tag, Content Credentials, and MKV files, which QuickTime Player does not open.
For that, open the video in Safari or another browser at metadata.video. It reads the file on your Mac, uploads nothing and explains every field. This guide covers the three built-in routes first.
Select the video in a Finder window or on the desktop and choose File > Get Info, or press Command-I. The window shows the size, the created and modified dates and, for indexed files, details such as dimensions, codecs and duration.
Open the video in QuickTime Player and choose Window > Show Movie Inspector, or press Command-I. It lists the compression format, size, frame rate, bit depth, HDR format and aspect ratio, plus the audio format and data rate.
Open Terminal, type mdls (with a space), drag the video into the window to paste its path, and press Return. It prints every attribute Spotlight has stored for the file.
For videos in your Photos library, select one and click the Info button or press Command-I. You see the capturing device, date and time, and the location, which links to Maps.
| Detail | Finder Get Info | QuickTime Movie Inspector | mdls | Photos Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | Yes, when indexed | Yes | kMDItemDurationSeconds | Usually |
| Resolution | Yes, when indexed | Yes, with aspect ratio | kMDItemPixelWidth / Height | Usually |
| Codec | Codec names | Compression format | kMDItemCodecs | Not documented |
| Frame rate | No | Yes | No | Not documented |
| Bit depth and HDR format | No | Yes | No | No |
| Bitrate | No | Data rate | kMDItemVideoBitRate, kMDItemTotalBitRate | No |
| Recording date | Created date is the file’s, not the recording | No | kMDItemContentCreationDate | Yes |
| Location | No | No | kMDItemLatitude, kMDItemLongitude when indexed | Yes, on a map |
| Device | No | No | kMDItemAcquisitionMake, kMDItemAcquisitionModel when indexed | Yes |
| Where it was downloaded from | Sometimes | No | kMDItemWhereFroms | No |
Finder’s created and modified dates belong to the copy on your disk. AirDrop, downloads and copies between drives can all give a file a new created date, so for the recording date use Photos, mdls or a full inspector.
mdls prints the metadata attributes Spotlight has stored for a file. With no options it lists all of them; -name picks particular ones, and -raw prints values without the attribute names, which is useful in scripts.
mdls clip.mov
mdls -name kMDItemCodecs -name kMDItemDurationSeconds -name kMDItemPixelWidth -name kMDItemPixelHeight clip.mov
mdls -raw -name kMDItemContentCreationDate clip.mov
| Attribute | What it holds |
|---|---|
kMDItemCodecs | The codecs in the file, such as HEVC and AAC |
kMDItemDurationSeconds | Length in seconds |
kMDItemPixelWidth, kMDItemPixelHeight | Picture size |
kMDItemVideoBitRate, kMDItemAudioBitRate, kMDItemTotalBitRate | Bitrates for the video, the audio and both together |
kMDItemContentCreationDate | When the content was created, as Spotlight understands it |
kMDItemLatitude, kMDItemLongitude | Where it was recorded, when the file has a location Spotlight could read |
kMDItemAcquisitionMake, kMDItemAcquisitionModel | The recording device, when known |
kMDItemWhereFroms | The web address or sender a downloaded file came from |
mdls reads Spotlight’s index, not the file itself. On a drive excluded from Spotlight, or when indexing is turned off or still running, you may see few attributes or (null) values even though the video holds plenty of metadata.
kMDItemWhereFroms is worth knowing about for privacy. It is stored by macOS alongside the file, not inside the video stream, and it can record the site or conversation a file was downloaded from. Other tools that read only the file will not show it.
hvc1 or hev1, which decides whether it plays on Apple devices. The codec checker shows both.com.apple.quicktime keys (make, model, software, location) are only partly surfaced.Photos can adjust the date and location of items in its library, but that changes the library record; an exported original may still carry the camera’s own values. The iPhone date guide explains the same split on iOS. To change what is inside the file, the options are:
brew install ffmpeg) and use -map_metadata -1 -c copy to strip tags; the ffprobe guide explains the options and their limits.Location is the field people most often want gone. Remove location only clears it and any telemetry while keeping the date and camera. If the video came from an iPhone, the iPhone location guide shows how to stop new videos recording it and how to share without it from the phone.
For a side-by-side with the other platforms, see video metadata on Windows, on iPhone and on Android. For a tour of every field a video can hold, read what video metadata is.
Open it in QuickTime Player and choose Window > Show Movie Inspector (Command-I). The frame rate is listed with the format and size. It does not say whether the rate is variable; the frame rate checker does.
Those come from Spotlight. If the file is on a drive Spotlight does not index, or indexing has not reached it yet, Get Info shows only the basic file details.
mdls reads Spotlight’s index, so an unindexed file has little to show. The metadata is still in the file; use the Movie Inspector, ffprobe or a browser inspector to read it directly.
Not with QuickTime Player, which does not open MKV. Use ffprobe in Terminal, MediaInfo, VLC’s media information window, or open the file on this site.
If it is in Photos, select it and press Command-I; the location shows on a map. For a file outside Photos, try mdls -name kMDItemLatitude -name kMDItemLongitude or open it in the location viewer.
No. Finder’s created and modified dates belong to that copy of the file on your disk. The recording date is inside the video and shows in Photos and in full inspectors.
No. Safari or any modern browser reads the file on your Mac. The only optional network requests are street map tiles when you press Show street map and the speech model if you use Transcribe speech.