Import MP4/QuickTime video into Photos v5.0 preserving title metadata

Thanks for your note! I tested again and Keys seems to be the most robust place to write that metadata.

It seems that currently there are several places to write Title, Description, Author and Keywords in H.264 .m4v, .mp4 and .mov.

I now tested this with macOS 11.2.1 Big Sur QuickTime Player and Photos.app 6.0:

1. Final Cut Pro 10.5.1 inserts the following tags to H.264 .m4v it exports and I can edit them with a command like:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -ItemList:Title='Title' -ItemList:Description='Description' -ItemList:Author='Author' -ItemList:Keyword='Keyword1,Keyword2' .

QuickTime Player's Get Info displays the Title, Description and Author and Photos.app 6.0 Title and Description.

Those ItemList tags also seem to need 'QuickTime:HandlerType=Metadata' tag so that QuickTime Player and Photos.app can display them:

[QuickTime]     HandlerType                     : Metadata

I can edit those tags but if I delete the last ItemList tag, also that 'QuickTime:HandlerType=Metadata' is removed and I can not add it back:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -QuickTime:HandlerType=Metadata fcp.m4v

Warning: Sorry, QuickTime:HandlerType doesn't exist or isn't writable

Nothing to do.

And then even if I can successfully add and edit those ItemList tags, QuickTime Player and Photos.app don't display them anymore.

2. On the other hand, Final Cut Pro 10.5.1 inserts the following tags to .mp4 it exports. I can edit them with a command below but after that neither QuickTime Player nor Photos.app display them anymore:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -UserData:Title='Title' -UserData:ClipFileName='Title' -UserData:Description='Description' -UserData:Author='Author' .

There is also 'UserData:Keywords' but it is not writable:

[UserData] Keywords : (err)

[UserData] UnknownThumbnail : (Binary data 123911 bytes, use -b option to extract)

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -UserData:Keywords='Keyword1,Keyword2' .

Warning: Sorry, UserData:Keywords doesn't exist or isn't writable

Nothing to do.

3. On the other hand, Photos.app 6.0 can add Titles, Captions and Keywords to movies and export them re-encoded as .mov. I can edit them (and add Author) with a command like:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -Keys:DisplayName='Title' -Keys:Description='Description' -Keys:Author='Author' -Keys:Keywords='Keyword1,Keyword2' .

The original 'Keys:Keywords' is as follows but Keywords doesn't seem to be supported anyway in movie apps?

[Keys] Keywords : (Binary data 0 bytes, use -b option to extract)

Keys overrides both ItemList and UserData tags in QuickTime Player and Photos.app and seems to be most robust so it seems it is best to use Keys in movie Titles, Descriptions and Authors in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov?

To add Keys and force any existing ItemList and UserData tags the same a command like this seems to work (I tried a simpler command without explicit Keys but then the edited UserData tags fail to display):

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -Keys:DisplayName='Title' -Keys:Description='Description' -Keys:Author='Author' -Title='Title' -ClipFileName='Title' -Description='Description' -Author='Author' .

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=12176.msg65758#msg65758

To summarize Big Sur QuickTime Player and Photos.app movie Title, Description, Author, and Keywords metadata support:

For some reason Final Cut Pro 10.5.1 and Photos.app 6.0 use different tags for the same info in different wrappers in their exported movies: ItemList in .m4v, UserData in .mp4 and Keys in .mov. In each wrapper there are some extra duplicate tags for the same info and maybe some errors or typos(?). You can check the tags and sometimes important sub-tags with exiftool -ver 12.18 or later in different formats:

exiftool -a -G1 -s .

exiftool -a -G0:7 -s -ee .

exiftool -a -G0:7 -s -Title -DisplayName -Description -Author -Keywords -Keyword .

Keys seems to be the most robust tag that seems to override the others -- to edit or add it and, if possible, synchronize any existing UserData and ItemList tags the same, use the following command (currently .mp4 'QuickTime:ID-kywd:Keywords' seems uneditable so I left it out):

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -api QuickTimeHandler=1 -Keys:Title='Title' -Keys:DisplayName='Title' -Keys:Description='Description' -Keys:Author='Author' -Keys:Keywords='Keyword1,Keyword2' -Title='Title' -ClipFileName='Title' -Description='Description' -Author='Author' -ItemList:ID-a9aut:Author='Author' -Keyword='Keyword1,Keyword2' .

exiftool author Phil Harvey: "Unfortunately nobody seems to care about standardizing video metadata. ExifTool tries to make the common tags the default ones, but there are too many players in this game, and on top of this they aren't consistent themselves."

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=12176.msg65758#msg65758

I tested this a few months ago:

Final Cut Pro 10.4.8 inserts the following metadata tags from the Apple Devices export dialog to m4v metadata:

'ItemList:Description: This video is about project_name'

'ItemList:Author: creator_name'

'ItemList:Keyword: tag_names'

'ItemList:Title: project_name' <- only if there are tag_names

QuickTime Player's Get Info displays the Description, Author and Title in .m4v (NOT in .mp4 and .mov) and Catalina Photos.app 5.0 the Description and Big Sur Photos.app 6.0 Title and Description in m4v.

I can later use exiftool to edit those tags with commands like (to add a tag leave out -wm w):

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -wm w -ItemList:Description='description' movie.mov

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -wm w -ItemList:Author='author' movie.mov

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -wm w -ItemList:Keyword='keyword1,keyword2' movie.mov

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -wm w -ItemList:Title='title' movie.mov

Add all at once without -wm w:

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -ItemList:Description='description' -ItemList:Author='author' -ItemList:Keyword='keyword1,keyword2' -ItemList:Title='title' movie.mov

But I don't yet widely use those tags because it seems there is no standard for such movie metadata.

Even the movie date tags still seem to be a mess with each app using its own way to grab the date.