Vlog the walk.
Don't share the map
of how you got home.
Modern iPhones write a per-frame GPS track into every video — one location point per picture frame, accurate to about three meters. A 60-second walking vlog literally encodes the route you took, step by step. Tracemute strips that track (and the camera serial, the timezone, the owner UUID) before the clip ever leaves your browser.
GPS points in a one-minute vlog
That's how many times your phone tagged you while you were talking to the lens.
At 60 frames per second a single minute of footage carries thousands of timestamped coordinates. Pause it, plot it on a map, and you have a real-time replay of the route. That trail is the difference between "I made a vlog in London" and "I left this café at 14:22 and walked here."
What's hidden in a vlog file
Not just the GPS. All of it.
iPhone 12 and later write a continuous GPS track into the QuickTime container — one sample per video frame, accurate to a few meters. A two-minute walking vlog literally records the path you walked.
The container also stores the timezone offset of capture. Combined with the per-frame GPS, anyone with the source file can reconstruct your day with timestamp precision.
Every clip you upload is signed by the same iPhone body serial. A reverse lookup ties three years of public videos back to one device — and one Apple ID.
Live Photos and shared albums embed a cross-asset Apple AssetID that links the clip back to your iCloud library. Even after upload, the file knows whose device it came from.
How it works · vlogging edition
Three taps before you upload.
Export your raw clip
AirDrop it to your laptop, save it from iMovie, or drop it straight from Photos. Tracemute handles MP4, MOV, HEIC, and the rest.
See the dossier
We surface the GPS track, capture timezone, lens serial, owner UUID — in plain English — before anything is removed.
Download the clean version
Pixel- and audio-identical to the original. Upload that one to TikTok / Reels / YouTube Shorts. Done.
"But doesn't TikTok strip it?"
Sometimes. Conditionally. Privately.
Most platforms strip public metadata from public posts. But the original still reaches their servers — and the rules quietly differ for DMs, archives, downloads, backups, and any clip the platform decides to expose. The only file whose metadata is actually gone is the one that arrives at the platform already clean.
| Platform | Public post | DM / story / download | Server-side copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok | Stripped | Inconsistent on DMs | Kept |
| Instagram Reels | Stripped | Varies by upload path | Kept |
| YouTube Shorts | Re-encoded (metadata dropped) | N/A | Kept |
| Direct download / repost | — | Original metadata survives | — |
The safest assumption: every platform sees the original, and every recipient who clicks "download" gets it. Strip before upload and the question goes away.
FAQ for creators
Vlogger questions.
Does TikTok remove EXIF and GPS from videos?
TikTok strips most metadata from public posts (feed, slideshows, public DMs), but the platform still receives the original GPS the moment you upload — it just doesn't show it to viewers. If you ever export the source clip from another app (AirDrop, a friend, a backup) the full track is still inside. The only way to guarantee no platform ever sees it is to strip it before upload. That's what Tracemute does, locally.
Does Instagram strip metadata from Reels?
From public Reels yes, mostly — but it's inconsistent across DMs, story replies, and the in-app download. Meta also keeps the original GPS on their internal systems even when public viewers can't see it. For a story that runs for 24 hours nobody can ever scrape the metadata back out of, the safer pattern is to strip before posting.
I turned off Location Services for the camera. Why does my vlog still have GPS?
Turning off Location Services for the Camera app stops new photos and videos from recording GPS — but the clip in your library that you're about to post was recorded before that toggle. Existing files still carry the coordinates from when they were captured. Strip them per-file before sharing.
Does iPhone really record GPS per video frame?
Yes. Modern iPhones (12 and later) write a per-sample GPS track into the QuickTime container, accurate to a few meters and timestamped to the millisecond. A 60-second walking vlog literally encodes the path you walked. Apple stores it in a `mdta` metadata block plus a custom `gps0` track. Tracemute removes the metadata block and zeroes the track payload while preserving the picture and sound.
Will my vlog look or sound any different after Tracemute?
No. The strip is a remux, not a transcode: we rewrite the container's metadata atoms in place without touching the video samples or audio samples. Byte-for-byte the pixels and the sound are identical to the original. Frame rate, bitrate, codec, color profile — all unchanged.
What about HEIC photos I drop into a TikTok slideshow?
HEIC is the iPhone's default photo format and it carries the full EXIF block (GPS, camera serial, lens, owner UUID). Tracemute handles HEIC with a native ISOBMFF parser — same lossless guarantee, no re-encoding to JPEG. Drop the .heic file in and download the cleaned .heic back. See /formats/heic for the format-level detail.
Clean the clip
before you hit upload.
Drop the .mov or .mp4 into Tracemute, see the GPS track and serial that were hiding in the container, download the same clip without them. Files never leave your browser.
More situations
Different photo. Same hidden cargo.
Posts & stories
Instagram strips. DMs don’t. Stories pass through.
Read the guideiMessage, WhatsApp, email
Direct sends keep every hidden field intact.
Read the guideSelling online
The interior shot points to your front door.
Read the guideDating-app profiles
Five photos = a map of your week.
Read the guide