iPhone 14 ios 18 videos no longer transfer with properties nor thumbnail

With iOS 18.1.1, videos taken with HDR Video set to ON will transfer to PC with properties and thumbnails. To find this setting, go top Settings>Camera>Record Video. The exact opposite was true before iOS 18.1.1 in that HDR Video had to be OFF in order to transfer to PC with properties and thumbnails.

I compared recent old and new iPadOS movies shot with the same iPad and it seems that the culprit is this new tag in iPadOS 18:

[QuickTime]     Full-frame-rate-playback-intent : 1

I could remove or add that tag with the help of this example.config with exiftool (exiftool does not yet have that tag included so it must be added as a user defined custom tag via a config file. You can put that text file named as "example.config" to the same folder as the images so it takes effect in the following commands):

%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined = (
   'Image::ExifTool::QuickTime::Keys' => {
        'full-frame-rate-playback-intent' => { },
    },
);

Remove the tag:

exiftool -config example.config -m -P -overwrite_original '-QuickTime:Full-frame-rate-playback-intent=' movie.mov

Add the tag:

exiftool -config example.config -m -P -overwrite_original '-QuickTime:Full-frame-rate-playback-intent=1' movie.mov

I tested this via Windows 10 VMware Fusion 13.6.1 virtual machine on macOS 15 Sequoia and at least there the thumbnails could be seen after that Full-frame-rate-playback-intent tag was removed in H.264 movies. My Windows 10 does not have H.265 add-ons so those movies remained without thumbnails. Can you verify that also H.265 behaves the same?

I do not yet know the purpose of that tag so I would not lightly remove it. Instead, I'd wait for a Windows update to fix this.

Same thing here, it still worked until iOS 18.1.1. After upgrading to iOS 18.2 any videos taken with my Iphone 15 Pro Max do not show thumbnails and metadata regardless of whether I transferred the directly via USB cable to my Windows 10 PC (1) or first via Airdrop to my MacBook (2) and then via network to my Windows 10 PC.

(1) If I transfer these to my Macbook via the network they show thumbnails and metadata on the Macbook.

(2) I can see the thumbnails and metadata on the Macbook.

So it does not depend on the transfer method. Apple has done something, intentionally or otherwise, so that Windows does not show metadata and thumbnails.

I installed exiftool for windows and after copying the videos in the same directory as exiftool.exe

typing this in the command line

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent= *.MOV

will process all the vide so you can see the metadata and thumbnails in Windows 10

So don't know if anyone has tried this but I just used the Microsoft Photos App to resolve the issue of the video thumbnails not showing up. It hasn't resolved the properties issue but at least thumbnails show up when I do this:

1) Open up Microsoft Photo App

2) Add the folder containing the videos with the thumbnails not showing up in the Gallery (see add folder button)

3) Let the folder with all the videos load into Photo App Gallery

4) Go back to Windows Explorer folder where the videos are, refresh your view and BOOM! the video thumbnails all showed up for me. And good news is they stayed when I transferred the videos to different folders.

Hope this helps someone because this is all very frustrating.

saarnet wrote:

Thank you very much. This solves the issue for me.

I created a batch with the following content in the folder where exiftool is stored:

%~dp0\exiftool.exe -config example.config -m -P -overwrite_original "-QuickTime:Full-frame-rate-playback-intent=" %1

I am glad that workaround works for you. Removing that tag seems to enable metadata display in Windows 10 File Explorer Details panel. In my virtualized Windows 10 setup that enables the display of some iOS/iPadOS 18 movie thumbnails but not in movies from some devices.

I hope Windows is updated to handle these little metadata changes better.

BTW, that QuickTime:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent tag (notice that the name is slightly different) was added to the official exiftool v13.09 and later so you no longer have to use that "-config example.config" custom user tag option. p.s. "Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent" is essentially the same command as well as only "FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent" because there are no overlapping same name tags.

https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16824.msg90410#msg90410

I used command

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent= *.MOV

and all thumbs returned!

Thanks to Vincent Bockaert from ms forum for this decision.

PS Works with last version 13.10 of exiftool!

Have not tried saarnet's suggestion but i have a working method:

As per my earlier post, just download the free exiftool from exiftool.org, copy the videos in the same directory as exiftool.exe and type this in the command line

exiftool -m -P -overwrite_original -Keys:FullFrameRatePlaybackIntent= *.MOV

or

save the above command with a text editor as convert.bat and click on convert.bat

this will process all the videos so you can see the metadata and thumbnails in Windows 10

In the past I also used to transfer the files also via connecting with an USB cable. Meanwhile I used 2 diiferent apps: "Photo Transfer" and now "LocalSend". Both transfer via WLAN in the local network. They access either they media gallery or the app "Files". They have no direct access to the filesystem, like you have when connect via USB.

When I vconnect via USB, I can transfer the video files without a problem, including the extension .MOV. But I also se no properties/thumbnail. Checking my older videos, this behaviour started obviously with iOS18.

Are you recording a new video with the HDR Video set ON?

I also have the same issue since IOS 18. In Windows 10 no thumbnails and no properties are shown for the transferred mov files. It can be fixed with ffmpeg.exe -i %SOURCE% -vcodec copy -acodec copy %DEST1%, but Apple should fix this in IOS.

Hi! moosab1, thank you for sharing. I can see the thumbnails by adding the folders to Microsoft photo App first. However, when moving the video files to different folders on File Explorer, the thumbnail shows up only if the files are moved by "cut and paste". If you use "copy and paste", no thumbnail shows on the file copied and paste.

Thank you very much. This solves the issue for me.

I created a batch with the following content in the folder where exiftool is stored:

%~dp0\exiftool.exe -config example.config -m -P -overwrite_original "-QuickTime:Full-frame-rate-playback-intent=" %1

I posted a working solution here:

iPhone 14 ios 18 videos no longer transfe… - Apple Community

Having exactly the same issue.

I transferred my photos and videos to Windows 11 using a USB cable.

In file explorer you can see thumbnails for everything before I installed IOS 18, but since updating there are now no thumbnails for videos. (Photos are fine)

I film content for work and this is causing so many issues. I now cannot see what any of the videos are without clicking into and watching them.

saarnet wrote:

with this command you can transcode the MOV files with ffmpeg to get the thumbnails, e.g. ffmpeg.exe -i IMB_8022.MOV -vcodec copy -acodec copy IMB_8022_transcoded.MOV

A problem with that workaround is that it deletes movie metadata (date, location, device info etc) because ffmpeg v4-7 does not properly support movie metadata no matter what.

FWIW now when I tested this via VMware Fusion Windows 10, I noticed that iPadOS 18.1.1 Photos "Transfer to PC" "Automatic" now converts .heic to .jpg but does not yet convert H.265 to H.264.