How to view photo metadata on any device

The quickest way, on any device

Open the EXIF viewer in any browser and drop the photo on it. It reads the file on your device and shows where the photo was taken, when, on which phone or camera, any serial number or owner name, and every other EXIF field in plain words. It reads JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC from iPhones and TIFF or DNG files, and nothing is uploaded, which matters when the reason you are checking is that the photo might be private.

The built-in panels below are fine for a quick look. They each show a subset, and none of them tells you about the embedded thumbnail, the camera serial number or the XMP and IPTC blocks that editors add.

iPhone and iPad

Open the photo in Photos and swipe up, or tap the ⓘ button. You get the date and time, the camera and lens, the resolution and file size, the exposure settings and, if the photo has a location, a small map. Tap Adjust next to the date or the map to change or remove them for that photo.

This view is of the photo in your library, not necessarily the file someone receives. When you share, the Options link at the top of the share sheet has a Location switch; turned off, the copy you send has no GPS. Photos saved from a website or AirDropped to you show whatever the file itself carries.

Android

In Google Photos, open the photo and swipe up (or tap the three-dot menu, then Details). You see the date, the device, the file name and size, the camera settings and a map if a location is stored. Samsung Gallery shows the same under the ⓘ button or Details.

Google Photos can also estimate a location from your Location History when the file has none. That estimate lives in your Google account, not in the file, so the photo you send may carry less than the panel suggests. The only reliable check of the file is to read the file.

Windows

Right-click the photo in File Explorer, choose Properties and open the Details tab. It lists the date taken, camera maker and model, exposure settings, and a GPS section with latitude and longitude when present. The Remove Properties and Personal Information link at the bottom can clear some of them.

Explorer only lists fields it knows how to edit. Maker notes, serial numbers, XMP history and the embedded thumbnail are not shown, and for HEIC files you need the HEIF extension installed before any of it appears.

Mac

In Preview, open the photo and choose Tools → Show Inspector (Cmd-I), then the ⓘ tab. The EXIF and GPS sub-tabs show most fields, and the GPS tab has a Remove Location Info button. In Finder, Get Info (Cmd-I) shows the dimensions, the device and the date under More Info, but no location. In the Photos app, the ⓘ button shows the same summary as on an iPhone.

For everything, the terminal command mdls photo.jpg lists what Spotlight indexed, and sips -g all photo.jpg prints the basic properties.

What to look for

When you check a photo before sharing it, these are the fields that identify someone or somewhere:

• Latitude and longitude. Paste them into a map and you have the street, often the house.
• Date and time taken, with the time zone on newer phones. Combined with location, it is a timeline.
• Camera serial number, camera owner, artist and unique image ID. Serial numbers link photos taken with the same camera across sites; owner and artist are often a full name.
• Embedded thumbnail. A small preview written when the photo was taken. Some editors crop the picture and leave the old thumbnail behind.
• Software and host computer. Which app edited it, sometimes the name of the computer.

Check again after you remove it

To remove all of it without changing the picture, use the EXIF remover: it deletes the metadata blocks and copies the image data byte for byte, so the photo looks exactly the same. Then drop the cleaned copy on the viewer; it should say "None stored" for location and list no fields. The location guide covers the phone settings that stop new photos from recording location in the first place.

Questions