Image Metadata Viewer
See what a photograph is carrying — camera, settings, date and location. Read in your browser.
Read in your browser. Your photo is never uploaded.
What a photograph knows about you
Every picture a camera takes carries a block of data alongside the image itself. Some of it is what you would expect — the camera and lens, the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO, the moment the shutter fired. Some of it is more than people realise: the serial number of the body, the name entered as the owner in the camera's settings, the software it was edited in, and on a phone, almost always, the coordinates where it was taken.
That block travels with the file. Copy the photo to a memory stick, email it, put it in a shared folder, attach it to a listing or a forum post, and the data goes with it. Nothing about it is visible when you look at the picture.
Why this one runs in your browser
Every tool on this site that can work locally does, but the argument is sharpest here. Someone checking whether a photo of their living room gives away their address should not have to send that photo to a stranger's server to find out. The file is read in the page, and there is no server to send it to.
Removing what you find
If the location is there and you would rather it were not, the reliable fix is to stop it being written in the first place: turn off location for the camera app, in Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Camera on an iPhone, or in the camera app's own settings on Android. For photos you already have, most phone galleries offer to remove location when sharing, and taking a screenshot of an image discards everything, at some cost in quality.
What each format carries
| Format | Typically holds |
|---|---|
| JPEG | The full EXIF block: camera, lens, exposure, date, orientation and GPS. This is what cameras and phones write. |
| PNG | Text chunks written by editors and generators, dimensions, colour type and resolution. Sometimes an EXIF block. |
| WebP | Dimensions, whether it is lossy or lossless, transparency, and an EXIF block when converted from a photograph. |
| GIF, BMP | Little beyond dimensions and colour depth. Neither format has a metadata standard worth the name. |
| HEIC | Not supported. Browsers cannot decode Apple's format, so no web tool can read it. |
If the panel comes back nearly empty
That is usually good news rather than a failure. Most platforms strip metadata on upload, precisely to protect the people posting. A photo saved from Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp or most forums will show almost nothing. Screenshots never carry any — the phone drew them, no camera was involved. And any image that has been through a resizer or an optimiser has usually lost it too.
The practical consequence: a picture found online rarely tells you where it was taken, and a picture sent to you directly, as an original file, very often does.
Reading the exposure figures
- Exposure time is shown as a fraction, the way a camera displays it. 1/250 s freezes movement; 1/30 s and slower shows camera shake without a tripod.
- F number is the aperture. Lower means a wider opening, more light and a shallower depth of field, so f/1.8 blurs the background and f/11 keeps it sharp.
- ISO is sensitivity. Higher lets you shoot in less light at the cost of grain: 100 is a bright day, 3200 is a dim room.
- Focal length in 35mm is the comparable one across cameras, because the raw focal length means different things on different sensor sizes.
Questions
Is my photo uploaded to read its metadata?
No, and on this tool that matters more than most. The file is parsed inside your browser. Sending a photograph to a server to find out whether it reveals your home address would hand over the very thing you were checking for.
What is EXIF data?
A block of information a camera writes into the image file alongside the picture: which camera and lens took it, the shutter speed, aperture and ISO, the date and time, the orientation, and on a phone usually the GPS coordinates. It travels with the file wherever it is copied.
Why does my photo show no metadata at all?
Because something stripped it. Most social networks remove EXIF when you upload, screenshots never have any, and many messaging apps strip it too. A file downloaded from Instagram or WhatsApp will usually be blank here. That is the platform protecting its users, and it means an image found online rarely carries its original data.
How do I remove the location from my photos?
At the source is best: both iPhone and Android let you turn off location tagging for the camera, which stops it being recorded at all. For photos you already have, most phone galleries can remove location when sharing, and re-saving an image through a screenshot or an editor usually drops everything.
Which formats can it read?
JPEG carries the most, since it is what cameras write. PNG holds its own text chunks and sometimes an EXIF block, WebP can carry EXIF, and GIF and BMP have little beyond their dimensions. HEIC from an iPhone is not supported, because browsers cannot decode it.
How accurate is the GPS position?
Typically within a few metres outdoors with a clear view of the sky, and much worse indoors or among tall buildings, where a phone falls back on wifi and cell positioning. Treat it as the neighbourhood rather than the doorstep, though the neighbourhood is often quite enough to identify a home.
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