How to Find the File Name of a Movie in the iOS Photos App

léonie wrote:

The videos on my iPhone are all showing the filename in the Info when I open the Info by tapping the Info button. The filename is shown below the date, just like for the photos.

In my iPadOS 18 images and movies shot on the iPad display the filename. But those synced from the Mac to the iPad via Finder & USB display the only internal database long name no matter what (also when airdropped to the Mac or if saved to Files.app -- with "All Photos Data" option iPad creates and uses a new filename like IMG_123.jpeg).

John Baro1 wrote:

Matti Haveri wrote:

In my iPadOS 18 images and movies shot on the iPad display the filename. But those synced from the Mac to the iPad via Finder & USB display the only internal database long name no matter what (also when airdropped to the Mac or if saved to Files.app -- with "All Photos Data" option iPad creates and uses a new filename like IMG_123.jpeg).

These are movies synced from my Mac. They are NOT movies I shot. The attached image is what I see. So, how can I see the actual file name?

As I said in my previous reply "But those synced from the Mac to the iPad via Finder & USB display the only internal database long name no matter what" (I tried to use some 3rd party iPadOS EXIF tools but they did not help in this problem).

It seems the only way is to check the original filename is to check it in the Mac's Photos library which stores it in its internal database. I do not use iCloud Photos so I can not comment how it works there.

John Baro1 wrote: …I tried adding the name in the Caption field then re-syncing, but I don't see the captions on the iPad. …

That's odd. Here is a picture to which I added a caption on my Mac and then synced through iCloud to my iPad:

you can also see the filename.

Matti knows more about this USB syncing that I do, but it's that which seems to be the issue. It looks like all the metadata is just not being transferred using USB. That's pretty much what Matti said, earlier, but it seems to extend to captions as well as applying to the filename.

All I can think is that you

1. Use iCloud (the best option)
2. Find a 3rd Party app to transfer the videos
3. Give Apple Feedback and hope they fix this is some later upgrade

Feedback - Photos - Apple

As far as iCloud goes, you could have a Library only for video transfer, and that might fit into the free 5GB we all get with iCloud. (But you'd be better off just flat out using iCloud…)

The videos on my iPhone are all showing the filename in the Info when I open the Info by tapping the Info button.

The filename is shown below the date, just like for the photos.

What is the source of your videos? Have they been taken with your iPhone or iPad or with a different camera?

In Photos, the Filename really doesn't have much purpose. You can include the video name and other descriptions in the Caption field, and you can search on that. If you know the filename, I guess you could include that in the caption as well.

What is it you want this "filename" for?