A DJI drone with Video Subtitles turned on saves an .SRT file beside each clip, and DJI's support pages say it logs the time and date, camera settings, latitude and longitude, altitude, flight speed and the attitude of the aircraft and gimbal for every frame. This tool removes the coordinates, home point, altitudes and distance from home from those logs, empties the data and subtitle tracks inside the video, and cleans .LRF proxies the same way.
Three places a DJI flight leaves its position
The .SRT sidecar. When Video Subtitles (called Video Caption on some models) is enabled in the camera settings, many DJI drones write a plain-text subtitle file next to each video. Each entry is a snapshot of the flight at that frame. DJI's own documentation explains two of the field names: rel_alt is altitude relative to the take-off point and abs_alt is absolute altitude. It also shows the firmware's own spelling, longtitude, which you may find in older logs.
There are two main layouts. Newer compact drones write bracketed fields, such as [latitude: …] [longitude: …] [rel_alt: … abs_alt: …], followed by camera values like ISO and shutter speed. Older models write the position as GPS(…), the take-off point as HOME(…), and distance and height from home as D and H values, with a BAROMETER reading.
Subtitles inside the video. DJI's support article lists consumer models that do not produce a separate SRT file, including the Phantom 4 series, Mavic Mini, Mini 2, Mini 2 SE, Mini 4K, Mini SE and Mini 3, and several enterprise products that embed subtitles in the video itself. Embedded or not, a subtitle track that carries flight data is part of the file you share.
Data tracks in the MP4. Recent DJI cameras can store their own metadata as extra tracks in the video container, in formats DJI does not document publicly. Tracks labeled djmd, dbgi or DJI.Meta turn up in recent recordings. They can hold camera and flight information alongside the picture.
How to clean DJI files
- Leave Keep subtitle tracks unticked, so embedded flight subtitles are removed.
- Copy the files off the drone's card and choose them all at once: the .MP4 or .MOV, the matching .SRT and, if you plan to share it, the .LRF.
- For an .SRT, check Location under Found in this file, which shows a sample position, and Lines, which counts every line of text in the file.
- For a video, check the track list for data and subtitle tracks, and read the timecode note.
- Download the cleaned files, or the whole batch as a zip.
What happens to an .SRT file
| Removed from each entry | Kept |
|---|---|
Latitude and longitude, including the longtitude spelling |
Subtitle numbers and the time ranges |
rel_alt, abs_alt and other altitude fields |
The date and time line |
GPS(…) and HOME(…) blocks |
ISO, shutter, aperture, exposure value, focal length and similar camera values |
BAROMETER, Hb and Hs heights |
Line breaks and layout, so players still show the subtitles |
D (distance from home) and H (height) values |
Flight speed and aircraft or gimbal attitude, on models that log them, are left in place. They describe how the drone moved, not where it was. If you want them gone as well, do not share the SRT at all. Only the cleaned video is needed for most purposes.
The cleaned file is named like the video, with "-clean" before the extension, so DJI_0001.SRT becomes DJI_0001-clean.SRT. If you also clean DJI_0001.MP4, the two cleaned names still match, which lets players that pair subtitles by name keep doing so.
What happens to a DJI video
Picture and sound tracks survive; the other tracks and the metadata boxes do not. Data tracks, subtitle tracks, the timecode track, the user-data and metadata boxes, vendor boxes and the creation times are overwritten with zeros or relabeled as free space. The file keeps its exact size and its picture is not re-encoded, so a 4K flight looks exactly the same afterwards. The general approach and its side effects are on the remove metadata from video page.
The .LRF proxy
DJI's support pages describe .LRF files as compressed videos used for preview and for the Trim Download feature in its apps, and note that renaming an .LRF to .MP4 turns it into a low-definition copy of the clip. In other words, it is your footage in smaller form, metadata included. This page accepts .LRF files and cleans them like any other video. If you do not need them, leave them on the card.
What this tool cannot do
- Remove what is in the footage. The picture and the sound are not decoded. A coastline, a rooftop, your own driveway at take-off: whatever the drone filmed is still what the video shows, and an on-screen readout burned into the picture stays too.
- Rewrite the rest of the codec settings. Each picture track's description loses its encoder name (in H.264, H.265 and ProRes, which covers what DJI drones record), unless that field says nothing beyond the coding format, such as "H.264". Four-letter vendor codes and an encoder's banner just before the first frame are left alone, and the result prints any of them it finds in its list of what is left.
An empty "left" line means that none of the things this tool checks for turned up. The limits page section says what is outside that.
What has been tested
The SRT cleaner was tested on both layouts described above. Video support for DJI was tested with synthetic files built to match the structure of DJI recordings, with data and subtitle tracks in the places DJI puts them. Because the cleaner keeps only picture and sound and empties all other tracks, rather than looking for specific DJI track names, new data track types are removed too. Clips from every DJI model have not been tested individually.
Where your flight data goes
The files are read and cleaned inside your browser tab. The subtitle text, the coordinates shown in the result panel and the video itself are not sent to any server. The cleaned files exist in the tab until you download them or close the page.
How the cleaning works
For subtitles, the tool works line by line. Lines that hold a subtitle number or a time range are never touched. On the remaining lines it removes the position, altitude and distance fields in either layout, then tidies leftover commas and spaces so the text still reads cleanly. For video, it reads the container's track list, keeps tracks whose handler is video or sound, and overwrites the samples of every other track in place, which works for files above 4 GB and for fragmented recordings.
The methodology page explains the test files and how to check for yourself that the files are not sent anywhere.
FAQ
My drone did not create an SRT file. Is my video clean?
Not necessarily. Some DJI models embed subtitles in the video, and many write data tracks inside the MP4. Drop the video here and look at the track list.
Should I just turn off Video Subtitles?
If you never use the flight log, turning it off stops new SRT files. It does not remove data tracks from the video itself, so clean videos you share either way.
Can I keep the subtitles but drop the coordinates?
Yes, for SRT files: that is exactly what the cleaner does. For subtitle tracks inside a video, the choice is all or nothing, since Keep subtitle tracks keeps them unchanged.
Does this work with DJI Osmo or Action cameras?
Their MP4 and LRF files are processed the same way as drone videos. DJI's note about .LRF files names the Osmo Action and Osmo Pocket models, so expect those proxies on their cards too.
Why does the cleaned SRT still show the date and time?
The date line is kept so the subtitles still make sense when played. Delete the SRT entirely if the date should not travel with the video.
Will editing software still sync the cleaned SRT with the video?
The subtitle numbers and time ranges are unchanged, so timing still lines up.
Sources
Checked 2026-10-11.
- DJI Support: What information does Zenmuse H20N video subtitles contain?
- DJI Support: video subtitle (SRT) support by product
- DJI Support: About .LRF files generated after recording
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