MP4 Description and Tags from EXIF
I'm new to using EXIF data with MP4's, so I fully expect I am doing something wrong where I am unable to get Immich to populate the Description and Tag fields. I did check the file with ExifTool and it does report my values in the Title, Comment and Category metadata fields. Any insight from someone with experience?
7 Replies
:wave: Hey @tyman00,
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If this ticket can be closed you can use the /close command, and re-open it later if needed.Hey @tyman00
Could you describe a bit more
1. What you do
2. What you expect
3. What you observe
Immich uses "Description" and "ImageDescription".
My test + some more info/details/references.
1. Test mp4 file with fields added manually outside Immich:
exiftool -G1 trim.mp4 | grep -Ei 'title|comment|category|mp4':
2. Uploading mp4 to Immich, logs:
3. The description is empty in UI.
4. Editing description in UI, logs:
5. From Immich sources:
https://github.com/immich-app/immich/blob/f422b341d163a88acfd2f7efada556e956005d5b/server/src/services/metadata.service.ts#L280
6. Immich writes metadata into XMP sidecar, avoiding modification of the original file
exiftool -G1 library/library/admin/2025/2025-08/trim.mp4.xmp:
7. Tangentially related - "[Feature] Display option to be more comments/description friendly" https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/15619
[Discussion] [Feature] Display option to be more comments/description friendly (immich-app/immich#15619)
Hi @Sergey Katsubo , thank you for the response. In order to make sure I'm not wasting your time I'll digest your response and respond accordingly a little later today.
@Sergey Katsubo thanks again for your help so far.
I'm currently attempting to add generic and common descriptions to my photos and MP4 videos in an effort to show the person that provided the photo to me for an album that will be shared with extended family. It's meant to be a quick and temporary solution until shared user tags, people data, etc is built into Immich. I know this has been heavily discussed and acknowledged by the team, so I don't intend to pile on.
1. & 2. My goal is to add the comments to the metadata before uploading. I was able to work it out for the photos in bulk using DigiKam. MP4's are not working as well. I'm willing to do the videos individually before uploading, if necessary. I'm currently trying to modify the metadata just using the Windows capabilities.
3.) When I upload to Immich, the coordinates and camera metadata is read and displayed, but the description is not. Tagging would be great too, if possible.
When I run exiftool in WSL, I get the following compared to your example:
I'll play around with adding the Metadata using something more reliable and robust than the file properties dialogue in Windows and report back.
@Sergey Katsubo Well, that follow up was easier than I expected! I ran the following on my video file prior to uploading:
Immich was able to pull the description upon upload and pre-populate it as I expected. I'm hoping to be more comfortable with Immich and the various support and development resources so I can troubleshoot these things on my own without having to bother anyone. I really appreciate your help!
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Brief update for anyone finding this in search. I was attempting to use DigiKam to have a graphical interface to update my tags and description in bulk. I was able to assign a tag to the images in bulk and then used the bulk queue manager to assign the "caption" field to be read in as the description in Immich. To ensure it worked on images and video files, I enabled the setting in DigiKam to use ExifTool instead of Exiv2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/u09w2a/with_next_digikam_800_we_add_a_new_option_to/#lightbox). Immich seems to like the way it's written to video files better this way.
Reddit
From the kde community on Reddit: With next digiKam 8.0.0, we add a...
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Thanks for sharing!