Remove Metadata from MP4 — Free, No Upload
MP4 is the universal container most phones, cameras, and AI generators export to. It carries metadata in three places: the global moov.udta atom (title, comment, GPS), per-track mdia.hdlr atoms (handler names + Apple vendor ID), and arbitrary uuid atoms (Apple Live Photos, C2PA AI provenance signatures). Our tool walks all three and removes them.
Last reviewed 2026-04-28 · Verified against synthetic + real-world MP4 samples
Drop your .mp4 file
Max file size: ~2 GB (memory permitting)
What leaks in MP4 files
- iPhone QuickTime keys: com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709 (GPS lat/lon/altitude), make, model, software, creation timestamp
- C2PA AI provenance UUID atom (D8FEC3D6-1B0E-483C-9297-5828877EC481) — used by Sora, Runway Gen-3, Kling, Adobe Firefly Video
- Track creation/modification dates, custom handler descriptions
- Encoder fingerprints (Lavc / Lavf version strings) when re-muxed without bitexact
- Empty udta>meta>hdlr "mdirappl" stub that FFmpeg always writes — we strip it manually
Confirming it worked
| Check it with the viewer | Open the cleaned file in the Video Metadata tool. Fields should be absent, not blank — an empty title atom still tells a reader that one existed. |
|---|---|
| The streams should be identical | Cleaning is a stream copy, so the picture and sound are bit-for-bit the same. A file whose duration or size changed noticeably did more than strip metadata. |
| What it does not remove | Anything inside the picture. A street sign, a house number, a screen reflection or a visible face identifies a location or a person no matter what the container says. |
| Filenames leak too | IMG_4471.MP4 and VID_20260917_143022.mp4 both carry a date and a device convention. Rename before sharing. |
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove metadata from an MP4 file?
Drop the MP4 into the cleaner above. It runs FFmpeg `-c copy -map_metadata -1` and a JS atom-level post-process to remove the empty udta scaffold. Output is the same MP4 minus all container metadata, bit-identical streams.
Does it work on iPhone QuickTime MP4?
Yes — iPhone exports use a QuickTime-flavoured MP4 with an extensive `keys` atom carrying GPS, device model, software version, creation date, and sometimes Apple ID hash. All of these are container-level metadata and get removed.
Can it strip C2PA from Sora / Runway / Kling MP4 exports?
Yes. C2PA provenance signatures live in an MP4 UUID atom with a fixed type identifier. Re-muxing with `-c copy` rebuilds the container without unknown UUID atoms — verified on synthetic samples.