Strip personal metadata from a video on Windows
Share recordings without leaking device model, GPS or author metadata.
Run the command below — clean.mp4 is a stream copy of input.mp4 with every metadata tag removed.
01Command
Command
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -map_metadata -1 -c copy clean.mp402What it does
-map_metadata -1 tells FFmpeg to import no metadata at all, dropping creation device, location and author tags from the output. -c copy re-muxes the audio and video streams untouched, so it finishes in seconds with zero quality loss. Phone recordings often embed GPS coordinates, so this is worth doing before posting publicly. Use exiftool-style tools if you also need to scrub embedded cover art or subtitles.
03Risk
!Warning: Some platforms add their own tracking metadata after upload — stripping the file is not anonymity.
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- FFmpeg main documentationEvidence: Documents -map_metadata (optionally with a global index such as -1 to drop all metadata) and -c copy for stream copy without re-encoding.
Last verified: 2026-09-19 · Category: Media