What EXIF data is
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of tags that cameras and phones write into every photo. It was designed for photographers: it records the settings of each shot so you can learn from them later. Today it also records much more personal details, such as the precise place where the picture was taken.
This viewer reads EXIF, plus the XMP and IPTC blocks that editing apps and photo agencies add, and lays the tags out in groups:
| Group | Typical tags |
|---|---|
| Camera | make, model, lens, software, serial numbers, owner or artist name, copyright |
| Exposure | shutter speed, aperture (f-number), ISO, focal length, flash, white balance, metering |
| Date and time | date taken, date digitized, last modified, time zone offset |
| GPS location | latitude, longitude, altitude, direction, GPS time stamp |
| Image | orientation, resolution, color space, original dimensions |
| Other | everything else the file contains, such as XMP and IPTC fields |
Dates are shown as they are stored in the file, which is usually the local time of the camera. Shutter speeds are written as fractions (1/250 s), apertures as f-numbers (f/1.8) and focal lengths in millimeters.
Reading the GPS location safely
When a photo has GPS tags, the summary shows the latitude and longitude with six decimals — around ten centimeters of precision, far more than a phone actually achieves, but enough to point at a building. A link opens the position on OpenStreetMap in a new tab.
The page deliberately does not embed a map. An embedded map would download tiles from another server for the exact coordinates of your photo. Here, the site’s security policy only allows the page to talk to its own origin, so the location stays on your device unless you choose to click the link.
Supported files
You can open JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and HEIC/HEIF files. JPG and HEIC photos from phones and cameras carry the most metadata. PNG and WebP files can hold EXIF too, but often do not, because they are typically produced by editors and websites. To see the pixel dimensions, file size and print size of an image rather than its tags, use Check Image Size.
What to do with what you find
If the viewer shows a GPS position, your camera model or your name in a photo you plan to post, clean it first with Remove EXIF Data: it removes EXIF, XMP and IPTC from JPG, PNG and WebP and, in most cases, keeps the image data byte for byte identical (a photo with a stored rotation is re-saved so it doesn’t turn sideways). The guide on how to remove EXIF data from photos explains the other ways to clean a photo. Converting a photo, for example with HEIC to JPG, also creates a file without metadata, because the output is rebuilt from pixels. If nothing is found, the file is already clean: it says nothing about where or when it was taken, beyond what the picture itself shows.