Add a Location to Videos
Scenario: your MOV or MP4 clips have no location, or lost it on export, and you want them on the map next to your photos.
This guide is for you if: your videos come from a camera that doesn’t record GPS, or from a video editor that dropped the location on export, and the GPS column shows a grey “no data” icon for them. You want to add a location so that Photos, Google Photos and other software put the clips on the map.
Videos work like photos in Media Location Tagger: same table, same map, same pins, same Apply button. The difference is where the location ends up inside the file, and the app takes care of that. Nothing is written until you click Apply.
What a video stores
A MOV or MP4 file has no EXIF. Its location is a single entry in the QuickTime container’s metadata (signed latitude, longitude and optional altitude), which is what iPhones write and what Photos reads. Media Location Tagger writes exactly that entry, carries over an existing altitude, and clears the older location atoms some phones and cameras used, so that no player finds a stale copy.
Videos have no IPTC fields either. If you apply place names to a video, they go into an XMP packet inside the file, which Lightroom, Bridge and asset-management systems read. Photos does not show them, so for video you can skip the place names without losing anything on the map.
Step 1: Add your files
Drag the clips into the file table, on their own or together with the photos from the same day. The GPS column shows what each file already has: green for iPhone clips, grey for camera clips and editor exports.
Step 2: Find the place on the map
Switch to the Side-by-Side view and type the place into the map’s search field, a landmark, a town or a street address, exactly as you would in Apple Maps. Pick the suggestion that fits and the map moves there.
If an iPhone clip or photo from the same spot is in the batch, there is a faster way: select it and click Add Pin next to its coordinates in the sidebar. The pin lands where the phone was.
Step 3: Drop a pin
Select the Drop a new pin tool and click the spot. The pin’s coordinates appear in the sidebar with an Apply button.
Step 4: Select the clips and apply
Select the clips taken there (click, shift-click for a range, ⌘-click to add or drop individual files, ⌘A for all) and click Apply next to the coordinates. The location is written into every selected file, in the form each one needs: EXIF for photos and RAW files, the QuickTime entry for videos. The GPS column turns green.
For a day with several stops, repeat steps 2–4 with one pin per place. Navigate → Next Pin and the arrow buttons step through the pins you have dropped.
Which video formats can be written
MOV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2 and the rest of the QuickTime family, including Insta360 INSV and GoPro LRV files.
AVI, MKV, WebM and MTS are read-only. Their metadata is shown, but when you apply to a selection that contains them, the app tells you how many files will be skipped and writes the rest. To tag such a clip, remux it into an MP4 without re-encoding first, for example with ffmpeg -i clip.mkv -c copy clip.mp4, and tag the MP4.
Two things to know
- Tag the file you keep. Video editors (iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Premiere and the rest) write a new file on export and do not copy the location into it. Tag the export, not only the source clips.
- Action cameras record a track, not a location. GoPro, DJI and Insta360 footage carries per-second GPS telemetry in a separate data track. Photos and Google Photos do not read it, so those clips still need a location applied here to appear on the map. The telemetry track is left untouched.