EXIF Metadata Viewer
Drop in a photo and see the metadata embedded in it: the camera and lens, the exposure settings, when it was taken, and — often — exactly where. Reading happens in your browser, which matters given that the whole point is checking what a file discloses.
- Free, no sign-up
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing uploaded
- Updated Sep 2026
Drop a photo here, or click to choose one
JPEG and TIFF carry EXIF · read locally, never uploaded
At a glance
- Reads
- EXIF from JPEG, TIFF and many camera formats
- Shows
- Camera, lens, ISO, aperture, shutter, focal length, date, GPS
- Privacy
- The photo is read locally and never transmitted
- GPS
- Converted to decimal degrees with a map link
- Stripping
- Explained below — this tool reads, it does not modify
- Cost
- Free, no account
What EXIF actually contains
EXIF is a block of metadata that cameras and phones write into image files. Some of it is useful, some of it is more revealing than people expect.
Technical data: camera make and model, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, whether the flash fired, white balance, exposure compensation. This is what photographers use to learn from their own shots and other people's.
Temporal data: the date and time the photo was taken, often to the second, sometimes with a timezone offset. Modern phones also record a sub-second timestamp.
Location data: GPS latitude, longitude and altitude, accurate to a few metres. This is the part that matters for privacy, and it is written by default on most phones unless location access for the camera has been turned off.
Device and software data: the phone or camera's serial number on some models, the software used to edit the file, and occasionally a unique camera body identifier that links every photo you have ever taken with that device.
Why the location field matters more than it seems
A photograph taken at home and posted publicly carries your home address, to within a few metres, in a field most people do not know exists. The same applies to a child's school, a workplace, or anywhere else a pattern of photos would reveal.
The mitigating factor is that most large social platforms strip EXIF on upload — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X and WhatsApp all do, primarily to save bandwidth rather than out of concern for you. The risk lives elsewhere: photos emailed directly, uploaded to your own website or a small forum, shared through cloud storage links, attached to a marketplace listing, or sent through a messaging app that preserves the original file.
Marketplace listings deserve particular mention. A photo of an item for sale, taken at home and uploaded to a classifieds site that does not strip metadata, tells any interested reader precisely where the item is. That combination — a valuable object and its location, published to strangers — is the one worth being deliberate about.
How to remove EXIF before sharing
This tool reads metadata rather than modifying files, but removing it is straightforward once you know where to look.
On a phone: both iOS and Android let you strip location when sharing. On iOS, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and turn off Location. On Android, the Photos app share sheet has a Remove location toggle. Better still, deny the camera app location access entirely — it is rarely worth what it costs.
On Windows: right-click the file, choose Properties, then Details, then Remove Properties and Personal Information. It will create a cleaned copy.
On macOS: Preview's Tools menu has an Inspector where location can be
removed, though it is fiddly. The command-line exiftool is more reliable:
exiftool -all= photo.jpg.
In bulk, or on a server: exiftool handles directories, and
most image-processing libraries strip metadata by default when they re-encode. If you accept
image uploads from users, stripping EXIF server-side is worth doing as a matter of course —
your users will not have thought about it, and you are publishing their files.
One caveat: re-saving a photo through an editor usually removes metadata, but not always, and some tools preserve GPS while dropping everything else. Check the result with this tool rather than assuming.
How to use the EXIF Metadata Viewer
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Drop in a photo
JPEG and TIFF carry EXIF. PNG and WebP usually do not, though PNG can hold other metadata types.
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Read the technical data
Camera, lens and exposure settings appear first — useful for understanding how a shot was made.
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Check the privacy summary
If GPS coordinates are present, they are shown with a map link so you can see exactly what the file discloses.
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Strip it before sharing if needed
The section above covers how to do that on each platform. Re-check afterwards rather than assuming it worked.
Frequently asked questions
Is my photo uploaded to read the metadata?
No. The file is read with the browser's FileReader and parsed in the page. Nothing is transmitted — which matters particularly here, since the reason to use an EXIF viewer is often to check whether a photo reveals your home address.
Why does my photo have no EXIF data?
Either it was stripped — most social platforms remove it on upload — or the format does not carry it. Screenshots, images exported from many editors, and most PNG and WebP files have no EXIF. Its absence is usually good news.
Can EXIF reveal where I live?
Yes, if GPS data is present and the photo was taken at home. Coordinates are typically accurate to a few metres. Most phones record this by default unless you have turned off location access for the camera.
Do social media platforms remove EXIF?
The large ones generally do — Facebook, Instagram, X and WhatsApp strip it, mainly to reduce file size. Direct email, your own website, cloud storage links and smaller forums usually do not. That is where the exposure actually happens.
Does removing EXIF affect image quality?
No. Metadata is stored separately from image data, so stripping it removes a few kilobytes and changes no pixels. The one thing to watch is orientation: some tools that remove metadata also drop the orientation flag, which can leave a photo displaying rotated.
Is EXIF useful for SEO?
Essentially not. Google has said it may read some metadata, but there is no evidence that EXIF affects rankings. Alt text, the filename, surrounding content and structured data do the work. Copyright and creator fields are worth filling in for attribution reasons, not ranking ones.