An .aae is the small companion file iOS writes beside a photo or video you have edited. Apple never overwrites your original: it keeps the untouched capture and records your edit separately, in the .aae. That design is why the file is worth reading. Its existence alone is an admission that the picture beside it was changed and that the real original is still sitting on the device.
Scan an Apple AAE sidecar fileThe sidecar says what kind of edit was applied, not merely that one happened. File X-Ray reads the adjustment identifier and translates it: a Photos edit, a video trim, slow motion, a Live Photo adjustment, a Live Photo trim, markup or annotation, or a sticker. If you send someone a photo and its .aae travels with it, you have told them the image is not the original capture and roughly what you did to it.
It also names the software. The adjustment editor bundle identifier is the app that performed the edit, and when it is not an Apple identifier it names the specific third-party application installed on that device. The adjustment format version tracks the iOS or macOS release that wrote the file, which narrows down how current the device was.
The actual edit parameters live in a compressed binary block inside the sidecar, not in readable text. File X-Ray decodes that block. For a slow-motion edit it reports the exact region of the recording that was altered and the speed applied. For other edit types it reports how many individual parameters were recorded, which is a measure of how heavily the original was worked on.
An .aae contains no image data, so reading one never shows the photo. What it holds is the account-shaped residue common to Apple property lists: the scan also sweeps the decoded values for email addresses and for paths containing a username, because a sidecar written by some third-party editors carries both.
This is a selection. The full field manual documents the fields read from each format.
It is an Apple Photos adjustment sidecar. When you edit a photo or video on an iPhone or iPad, iOS keeps the original untouched and writes your edit into a separate .aae file. If you copy the photo straight off the device rather than sharing it through Photos, the .aae often comes along with it.
It is a property list, usually in Apple's binary form, so a text editor shows very little. Drop it here and File X-Ray decodes it in your browser and reports the edit type, the app that made it, the format version and the decoded edit parameters. Nothing is uploaded.
Deleting the .aae does not touch the photo, and the picture keeps whatever it currently looks like on your device. What you lose is the ability for Apple Photos to revert that edit back to the original. If you want to stop them travelling with your photos, export or share through the Photos app rather than copying the raw camera roll.
That the adjacent image is not the original capture, what kind of change was made, and which app made it. A third-party bundle identifier names software installed on the device. It contains no image data, so it never shows the picture itself.
The sidecar refers to a photo by name, so an .aae separated from its image is an orphan. It still states that an edit was made and by what, which is why it is worth reading even without the picture.
Yes. The .aae is parsed entirely in your browser and never leaves your device.
File X-Ray reads Apple AAE sidecar files entirely in your browser - the file never leaves your device. This format is inspected, not modified. Scan a file now.