Photo EXIF & Metadata Viewer
Drop a photo or a PNG to see what it quietly carries: the GPS coordinates where it was taken, the camera or phone that took it, the exact date and time, lens and exposure, and the editing software or author baked into screenshots and exports. Everything is read in your browser, and you can hand back a cleaned copy. Your image is never uploaded, sent anywhere, or stored.
What EXIF reveals, and why a photo's metadata matters
What is EXIF
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of metadata that cameras and phones write inside a photo file, alongside the image itself. It records technical details about the shot, and often far more: the device that took it, the exact moment, and, when location services were on, the precise GPS coordinates. None of this is visible when you look at the picture, which is exactly why it matters.
What it can reveal
- Where the photo was taken, down to a few meters, if GPS was enabled.
- What device took it, make and model, which can link a set of photos to one camera or phone.
- When it was taken, the original timestamp, which can confirm or contradict a claimed timeline.
- How it was made: lens, aperture, shutter, ISO, and whether it passed through editing software.
Not just photos: PNG files too
EXIF lives mostly in JPEG and TIFF camera files, but PNGs carry their own metadata in text chunks. Screenshots and images exported from editors often record the software that made them, an author or copyright line, a title or comment, and a timestamp, and some phones even embed a full EXIF block (with GPS) inside a PNG. This tool reads all of that, and a PNG can be cleaned just like a JPEG.
Why investigators and the privacy-conscious care
In open-source investigations, EXIF can place a photo in time and space or tie images to a common device. For everyone else it is a privacy footnote worth knowing: a photo you share could carry your home's coordinates. Most large social platforms strip EXIF on upload, but original files, files sent through many messaging apps, and images on smaller sites often keep it. Checking before you share is the safe habit.
What this tool does and does not do
It reads the EXIF that is present and shows it, including converting GPS coordinates to a decimal pair with a map link. For a JPEG it can also hand you back a copy with the metadata removed: it strips the EXIF, GPS, and similar segments out of the file bytes without re-compressing, so the picture is byte-for-byte the same and only the hidden data is gone, which is handy before you share a photo. It cannot recover metadata that was already stripped: an image with no EXIF simply has none to show. Absence of metadata is not suspicious; it usually just means a platform removed it or the camera never wrote it. As with every signal here, treat what you find as a lead to corroborate, not proof on its own.