How to use it
- Open a photo. JPG, HEIC, TIFF, PNG and WebP all work.
- Read through the fields, grouped by type. If there is a location, you will see a clear warning and a map link.
- Download a clean copy with the metadata removed if you need one.
What EXIF usually contains
- Camera and lens: make, model, lens, and sometimes a serial number.
- Exposure: shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, flash, metering and white balance.
- Time: when the photo was taken, often with the time zone offset.
- Location: GPS latitude, longitude, altitude, and on phones sometimes the direction the camera was facing.
- Software: the app or editor that last saved it, and in XMP, sometimes a full editing history.
Photographers use EXIF to learn from their own shots and from others'. It also answers practical questions: when was this taken, which of two cameras did better, was the flash on.
The privacy angle
A phone photo taken at home, with location services on for the camera, pins your home to a few metres. Many social networks strip that data from public posts, but files sent by email, cloud links, marketplace listings and many messaging apps often arrive with it intact. Checking is quick, and the metadata remover will strip it. There is a longer look at this in the location data hiding in your photos.
Questions people ask
How do I see where a photo was taken?
Open it here. If it has GPS data, the coordinates appear at the top with a link to a map.
Why does my photo have no EXIF data?
It may have been stripped by a social network or messaging app, by an editor on export, or by a screenshot, which never has camera data.
Can EXIF data be faked?
Yes. It is easy to edit, so treat it as a clue rather than proof.