What movie metadata Photos and QuickTime Player support

GraphicConverter 12.0.1 now supports editing the following .mp4, .m4v and .mov tags:

MacOS:FileCreateDate

System:FileModifyDate

QuickTime:CreateDate

Keys:CreationDate

Keys:GPSCoordinates

Keys:DisplayName

Keys:Title

Keys:Author

Keys:Description

Keys:Keywords

Keys:LocationName

Keys:CreationDate can be added/deleted via GC "Metadata Specifics" menu and also GC "Force adding of creation dates" movie option must be turned ON. Newer iOS versions use it and macOS 10-13 Mojave - Ventura Photos.app prefers it over QuickTime:CreateDate (as a last resort it grabs the date from MacOS:FileCreateDate if neither of those tags has a date).

Keys:CreationDate is really only needed for old pre-1970 movies where QuickTime:CreateDate does not work (or maybe if local time is preferred over UTC). Before year 1902 Keys:CreationDate works even to year 0001 in Photos.app but then Google Photos might randomly display a wrong date and even if it displays the correct date, it might sort that very old movie incorrectly.

Movie timezone is grabbed from the computer's timezone setting. In an earlier GC beta version there was an option to set timezone via the same "Store Time Zone" setting that works for .jpg. But that caused some related issues so that option was removed. I have never needed to fiddle movie timezones and even vacation movies and images sort and mix correctly in my workflow.

QuickTime Player show date, GPSCoordinates, DisplayName (Headline), Title, Author (Writer), Description and Keywords.

Photos.app show date, GPSCoordinates, DisplayName (Headline), Title, Description and Keywords.

In both Apple's apps DisplayName (Headline) overrides Title if both are present. I decided use Title in movies because I use the same GC field to edit IPTC:ObjectName and XMP-dc:Title in .jpg.

If GC has XMP support for movies turned ON, then also the following XMP is filled but none of those Apple's apps show these fields:

XMP-dc:Title

XMP-dc:Description

XMP-photoshop:CaptionWriter

XMP-dc:Subject

XMP-xmp:Rating

Compared to Keys, UserData and ItemList have a much more limited support for those tags in Apple's apps.

If necessary, you can set the Keys:CreationDate movie timezone with exiftool command like (that does not touch QuickTime:CreateDate because it is UTC and even more confusing because the occasional added Daylight "Savings" Time in summer):

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original_in_place -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -api LargeFileSupport=1 -QuickTime:CreateDate='2000:06:01 12:00:00-08:00' -Keys:CreationDate='2000:06:01 12:00:00-08:00' -Keys:Title='Title' -Keys:Author='Author' -Keys:Description='Description' -Keys:Keywords='Keyword 1,Keyword 2' movie.mp4

exiftool -a -G1 -s -api QuickTimeUTC=1 -Time:All movie.mp4
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2000:06:01 23:00:00+03:00
[Keys]          CreationDate                    : 2000:06:01 12:00:00-08:00

FYI: I tested in more detail how macOS 13.3.1 Ventura Apple's apps and the current Google Photos display movie metadata.

Sadly movie metadata is still a mess and a moving target. Currently QuickTime based .mp4, .m4v and .mov metadata is most often stored in Keys, UserData or ItemList tag groups, XMP is a less used option (check the tags with 'exiftool -a -G1 -s -n movie.mp4').

Some same or similar tags can be stored in several tag groups and an app might prefer to display one or the other in some preferred order if many of them co-exist (below the preferred tag order is labeled primary, secondary etc).

Additionally some apps use different Tag ID's for same main tags and an app might prefer one or the other ID (displayed with exiftool G1:7 option). For example, UserData:ID-a9nam:Title is exiftool default Title tag that Spotlight can find. But weirdly FCP 10.6.5 uses UserData:ID-titl:Title which Spotlight can NOT find. <sigh>

Apple's apps support movie wrappers like .mp4, .m4v and .mov etc (.mp4 and .m4v are very much the same, .m4v only has some DRM options added). Wrappers are containers that can store different video codecs (H.264, H.265 a.k.a. HEVC, DV, MPEG2 etc) and audio codecs (AAC, PCM etc). Apple's apps do not support wrappers like .mkv, .webm, .avi, .divx etc, video codecs like VP9, AV1 etc, or audio codecs like A_OPUS etc so you must use VLC or IINA to view them or Handbrake, ffmpeg etc to convert them to other wrappers (often lossless) or codecs (lossy) that Apple's apps support.

Different wrappers might behave differently in different apps although they contain the same codecs and metadata.

The Keys tag group is currently most widely supported in Apple's apps (see below). These Keys tags can be edited in Graphic Converter 12.0.2 and later (GC can also edit movie dates which is another discussion):

-> macOS 13.3.1 Ventura Photos.app displays:

.mp4, .m4v, .mov:

Keys:GPSCoordinates [primary GPS]

Keys:DisplayName [primary Title]

Keys:Title [secondary Title]

Keys:Keywords

Keys:Description [primary Description]

ItemList:Title [tertiary Title]

ItemList:Description [secondary Description]

.mov:

UserData:GPSCoordinates [secondary GPS]

UserData:ID-a9nam:Title [quaternary Title, exiftool 12.60's default Title tag]

-> macOS 13.3.1 Ventura Photos.app finds:

.mp4, .m4v, .mov:

Keys:DisplayName

Keys:Title

Keys:Keywords

Keys:Description

ItemList:Title

ItemList:Description

.mov:

UserData:ID-a9nam:Title [exiftool 12.60's default Title tag]

-> macOS 13.3.1 Ventura QuickTime Player.app displays:

.mp4, .m4v, .mov:

Keys:GPSCoordinates [primary GPS]

Keys:DisplayName [primary Title]

Keys:Title [secondary Title]

Keys:Author [primary Author]

Keys:Keywords

Keys:Description [primary Description]

ItemList:Title [tertiary Title]

ItemList:ID-a9aut:Author [secondary Author, FCP 10.6.5 tag]

ItemList:Description [secondary Description]

.mov:

UserData:GPSCoordinates [secondary GPS]

UserData:ID-a9nam:Title [quaternary Title, exiftool 12.60's default Title tag]

-> macOS 13.3.1 Ventura Spotlight finds:

.mp4 and .mov:

Keys:DisplayName

Keys:Author

Keys:Keywords

Keys:Description

.m4v:

ItemList:Title

! Spotlight does NOT find any tag in .m4v. BUT if just the file suffix is changed from .m4v to .mp4, THEN it works as well as in .mp4 and .mov. Weird!

.mov:

UserData:ID-a9nam:Title [exiftool 12.60's default Title tag, FCP 10.6.5 tag UserData:ID-titl:Title not found]

-> Google Photos (a moving target) as of 2023-0507 displays:

.mp4, .m4v, .mov:

ItemList:GPSCoordinates [primary GPS]

UserData:GPSCoordinates [secondary GPS]

Keys:GPSCoordinates [tertiary GPS]

- Matti