Does my video have GPS?
Drop a GoPro or DJI file below and we'll tell you in a few seconds whether the camera's GPS track is still inside it. The file never leaves your computer. Your browser reads a few megabytes of header and nothing gets uploaded, not even the name. If the track's there, upload the file to Race Ninja and you get lap times, sectors and coaching. If it isn't, we'll say why and where the original lives.
This is the same check our uploader runs before every upload. We built it because exported and re-saved files are the number one reason an upload comes back with no lap times.
One limit, and it matters. This check sees that the camera wrote its telemetry track into the file. It can't see whether the GPS inside that track ever locked onto satellites. GPS switched off, or a recording started before the lock, looks exactly the same here. The full read happens when you upload.
What a pass means, and what it doesn't
A pass means the file is the original, or a copy that kept the telemetry. GoPro writes it as a GPMF track, DJI as its own metadata track. Exports from Quik, GoPro's Download button, DJI Mimo or Fly, video editors and most messaging apps throw that track away. Those fail here, and they'd fail on upload too.
A pass doesn't prove there are positions in the track. Three things still catch people out: GPS turned off in the camera settings, hitting record before the GPS icon settled, and the GoPro Hero 12, which has no GPS chip at all but still writes a telemetry track for its motion sensors.
So before the next session: GPS on in settings, camera powered up outdoors a good 30 seconds before you roll, icon solid, clear view of the sky. DJI owners, pair the GPS Remote first. No remote, no positions.
Common questions about the GPS check
What does this checker actually read?
The first few megabytes of the file: the part called the moov atom, where a camera lists its tracks. GoPro files carry a track called gpmd, DJI files one called djmd. We look for those and stop. We never decode the video and we never read the footage itself, so a 30 GB file takes about as long as a 30 MB one.
Does my video get uploaded when I use this?
No. The check runs in your browser using the file picker, and the page makes no request with the file, its name or its size. Pull the network cable out after the page loads and it still works. The only thing we count is how many checks pass or fail, with no file details attached.
It passed, so why did my upload still say no GPS?
Because a telemetry track can exist with no positions in it. GPS was off in the camera, or recording started before the icon settled, or it's a Hero 12, which has no GPS chip but still writes a sensor track. The check can't tell those apart. The upload can, and it'll say which one happened.
Which files lose the GPS track?
Anything that went through an export: GoPro Quik, the Download button in GoPro's own app or cloud, DJI Mimo and Fly, video editors, AirDrop and WhatsApp compressions. Phone footage never had one. The fix is the original. Copy it off the SD card, or for a GoPro in GoPro Cloud, paste a share link on the upload page with Allow Download switched on and we fetch the original ourselves.
Does it work for DJI Osmo 360 files?
Not the .OSV ones. That container isn't a standard MP4, so the browser check skips it and tells you so. Upload it anyway. DJI cameras only record positions with the GPS Remote paired, so if the remote wasn't on, there's nothing in the file to find on any check.