Hi all,
I am a complete newbie.
I have a few videos which the GPS location are not accurate and I would like to use Exiftool to update it to the correct position.
The video was captured by my iPhone 15 in MOV (quicktime) format
I ran the following command
exiftool -overwrite_original -@ .\Keys\my1.arg "2025_05_17 09_50_09_000.MOV"
where the arg file has the following line
-Keys:GPSCoordinates=23°58'38.6356" N, 121°36'43.05" E, 16.349 m
the update run successfully.
The issue I have is, before the update, Window folder and Window Photo app can read the "capture date" and "GPS" information and order them in correct order.
However after I issued the above command, window can no longer read the "capture date" (treating it as today) and the GPS information cannot be displayed in Window Photo App.
Using Exiftool GUI to check, I can see the GPSCoordinates has been updated accordingly and the only tags that have moved is "MediaDataOffset" from 5th items under quicktime group to the last item and its value has changed also.
Can you tell me how to update the GPS info but window can still recognise them?
What version of Windows are you using? I'm guessing Windows 11?
I re-installed the photo app on my Windows 10 system, and it doesn't show me any metadata at all. So I'm not sure if I'll be much help.
Regarding the "Capture Date". It sounds like the app is using the file system time stamp, because when a file gets edited, the
FileModifyDate is updated by the system. You can try adding the
-P (
-preserve) option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#P--preserve) which will make sure the
FileModifyDate is not changed.
For the coordinates, instead of writing to
Keys, try writing to
ItemList and
UserData, as
GPSCoordinates can appear in those subgroups as well. There's actually a fourth location for
GPSCoordinates, but exiftool has it marked as Avoid, so it's more difficult to write to. We can try that if the others do work, but it's unlikely that it will fix the problem.
One more thing, if you're typing the coordinates out, you don't need the degree
°, minute
', and seconds
" symbols. Exiftool will just ignore them. See FAQ #14, "What format do I use for writing GPS coordinates?" (https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q14).
QuoteExifTool is very flexible in the formats allowed for entering GPS coordinates. Any string containing between 1 and 3 floating point numbers is valid
thanks for your help
adding the -p has resolved the "Capture Date" issue.
Also I Would like to apopologise for giving you the wrong information. It turns out that window photo app cannot read the GPS info from MOV before Exiftool updated the file.
I suspect window (11) cannot read the metadata at all, it was using the last modify date to sort the files and gave me a false perception that window can read the metadata to sort them accordingly.
Anyway I am trying to see if I can convert the videoes into another readable format but keep all the metadata intact. Thanks for your help again.
I can't comment on what Windows 11 photo app does, as I said, the Win10 app doesn't show any metadata at all.
I've documented what Window 10 will read to fill the Properties⇾Details window in the Windows Metadata thread (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?msg=32875). While I never tested MOV files, I think they will be the same as MP4s. The main problem is that Windows mostly reads the Microsoft specific tags. Exiftool can write some of them, but not all of them and there are some for which I've never found a program that could write them. Not even ffmpeg, the most common program for dealing with video, can write Microsoft tags.
Quote from: kingM on June 14, 2025, 11:40:19 PMI suspect window (11) cannot read the metadata at all
Some Windows versions might not display movie metadata and thumbnails if there is FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16824.msg90410#msg90410) tag which was introduced in iOS/PadOS 18. You might try to delete it with:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -ext mov -Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent= movie.mov- Matti
Quote from: wywh on June 15, 2025, 02:21:24 AMSome Windows versions might not display movie metadata and thumbnails if there is FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16824.msg90410#msg90410) tag which was introduced in iOS/PadOS 18.
That had slipped by me and I need to add that to my notes.
Windows 10 will choke if there's too much metadata in a video and stop displaying anything in the properties window. I didn't think to check to see if it was a specific tag that was blocking the display. But that would be difficult to check.
Quote from: wywh on June 15, 2025, 02:21:24 AMQuote from: kingM on June 14, 2025, 11:40:19 PMI suspect window (11) cannot read the metadata at all
Some Windows versions might not display movie metadata and thumbnails if there is FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16824.msg90410#msg90410) tag which was introduced in iOS/PadOS 18. You might try to delete it with:
exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -ext mov -Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent= movie.mov
- Matti
I ran the script you provided and it works now. Thanks for your help.
I also ran into another issue and I will write down my "guessed" solution here hopes that I can help people in the future.
Once I patched the GPS using Exiftool and re-import the videos back into Adobe Lightroom (its for my photo editing, I just put the video together as it is the same trip). I found Lightroom will display a wrong GPS value, they all move from the correct position a little bit (within 50km randomly). However exiftool is telling me the value is correct, so I have concluded that it is Lightroom which cannot read the patched GPS information.
After some testing, I think Lightroom cannot read GPS Coordinate which has more than 6 decimal number. Once I convert my degree minute and second into decimal number and round it up to 6 decimal number, it works.
Quote from: kingM on June 15, 2025, 01:34:02 PMAfter some testing, I think Lightroom cannot read GPS Coordinate which has more than 6 decimal number. Once I convert my degree minute and second into decimal number and round it up to 6 decimal number, it works.
Weird that also Adobe apps might have this weird Google Photos issue:
Google Photos shows Keys:GPSCoordinates positions only if there are 3-5 decimals (no more, no less!) in decimal degrees DD after the dot, and altitude must be max 4 decimals (exiftool 11.66 pads latitude to 2 digits and longitude to 3, exiftool v12.11 pads minimum 3 decimals to .mp4, .m4v and .mov. Use -v2 to see what is actually written or read).