Guide

Why Snapchat videos never show up on the Apple Photos map

Guides · Snapchat export

You fixed the dates, your photos finally have pins on the map — and yet every exported Snapchat video sits there with no location at all. This isn’t a mistake on your end. Apple Photos reads video location from one very specific place that Snapchat leaves empty and that nearly every other tool can’t write.

Why are my Snapchat videos missing from the map?

Because the location was never written into the video file. When you export from Snapchat, the real coordinates for each memory stay in the export’s memories_history.json manifest — the video files themselves come out with their location fields blank. A photo and a video from the exact same moment will look different in Apple Photos: the photo can carry GPS in normal EXIF tags, but the video has nothing for Photos to read, so it never earns a pin.

Why do photos appear on the map but videos don’t?

The difference is where Apple Photos looks for the location, and it’s not the same place for both. For a photo, it reads the standard EXIF GPS tags — a well-trodden format that almost any tool can write, so once a photo’s coordinates are restored it shows up on the map. For a video, Apple Photos ignores EXIF entirely and reads a QuickTime metadata field called the Keys:GPSCoordinates atom. If that exact atom is missing, the video has no location as far as Apple Photos is concerned, no matter what other fields are filled in.

What is the QuickTime Keys:GPSCoordinates atom?

It’s the one location field inside an MP4/MOV file that Apple Photos trusts for the map. QuickTime files store metadata in nested boxes called atoms, and there are several places coordinates can go — an older ©xyz tag, an XMP sidecar, a generic location string. The catch is that Apple Photos puts video pins on the map from Keys:GPSCoordinates specifically and ignores the rest. This is exactly why so many “GPS tagger” tools fail on video: they write a coordinate field that a media player will happily display, but not the one the Apple Photos map reads, so the video file looks tagged yet stays off the map. Re-tagging in a different app usually doesn’t help either, because the new app writes to the same wrong field.

Why can’t most tools fix this?

Writing that atom byte-correctly is genuinely hard. The native photo and video libraries most apps are built on simply don’t expose the Keys:GPSCoordinates atom — they’ll happily set EXIF GPS on a photo and stop there. Writing it reliably for every video means going down to the metadata-atom level of the QuickTime container, which is why exiftool — the long-standing standard for this — is effectively the only thing that does it dependably. SnapMemories does exactly that: it reads the coordinates from your export’s JSON and writes the video GPS atom Apple Photos needs — alongside the correct capture date — into each video, and standard EXIF GPS into each photo. See how it works for the full pass. The result: import the corrected files and your videos finally land on the map next to your photos.

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Frequently asked questions

Why do my Snapchat photos show on the Apple Photos map but the videos don't?

Apple Photos reads photo location from standard EXIF GPS tags, which are easy to write, so once a photo's GPS is restored it appears on the map. For video, Apple Photos specifically reads the QuickTime Keys:GPSCoordinates atom — a different field that Snapchat's export leaves blank and that almost no tool writes. Without that exact atom, the video never gets a pin.

I added GPS to my videos with another app — why are they still missing from the map?

Many tools write a generic location field (like the older ©xyz QuickTime tag or an XMP sidecar) that media viewers read, but Apple Photos ignores those for the map. It wants the Keys:GPSCoordinates atom. If a tool can't write that specific atom, the video stays off the map even though the file looks 'tagged' elsewhere.

Where does the location data even come from if the videos are blank?

From your own export. The original capture coordinates for every memory live in your export's memories_history.json; the video files themselves were left blank by Snapchat. SnapMemories reads that JSON and writes the coordinates into the right atom. It never contacts Snapchat or downloads anything for you — you supply the export you already downloaded.

Does this work in the desktop app too, or only online?

Both. The browser version and the Mac/Windows desktop app write the same QuickTime Keys:GPSCoordinates atom for videos. The desktop app runs fully offline, so your media never leaves your computer.