What is EXIF data, and what does a photo reveal?

The short version

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of labelled fields that cameras and phones write into JPG and HEIC files alongside the picture. It was designed so photo software could show shooting details and rotate images correctly. It has since become the most common way people accidentally share where they were.

What is in it

A typical phone photo contains most of these:

• Date and time the photo was taken, to the second, plus the time zone on newer phones.
• Device: make and model ("Apple iPhone 15 Pro"), and often the lens.
• Settings: exposure, aperture, ISO, focal length, flash, white balance.
• Orientation: which way up the camera was held. Software uses this to display the photo upright.
• GPS: latitude, longitude, altitude, sometimes heading and speed, when location is enabled for the camera.
• Software: the app or editor that last saved the file, and for edited photos, the original date.
• Thumbnail: a small embedded preview, which in badly written editors can still show the uncropped picture.
• Alongside EXIF, files often carry XMP (editing history, keywords, sometimes the photographer's name and copyright) and IPTC (captions and credits used by news agencies). Camera RAW files and professional workflows can put a full name and contact details there.

Who can read it

Anyone with the file. Windows shows it under Properties, macOS under Get Info, and every image viewer has an info panel. Browsers expose it to any script on a page you upload to. Marketplaces, forums and cloud links pass the file through unchanged. Investigators, journalists and stalkers all use it; so do photo apps that group your pictures by place.

The big social and messaging apps strip it on upload, mostly for their own reasons (bandwidth and consistency), which has made people assume it is always removed. It is not: email, cloud drives, direct file transfers and most smaller websites keep it.

How to see what a photo contains

Drop it on the metadata remover. Before anything is changed, it lists what the file carries: which metadata kinds, their size, whether there is a GPS location, the camera, the date and the software. The file is read inside your browser and is not uploaded, so checking a sensitive photo does not itself leak it.

How to remove it

Two approaches. Re-saving the image through any editor or converter drops EXIF as a side effect, but it also re-compresses the picture, losing a little quality each time. Stripping removes only the metadata segments from the file and leaves the image data untouched, which is what the remover does for JPG, PNG and WebP: the output is pixel-identical and a little smaller. Keep the colour profile (ICC) ticked; it contains no personal data and removing it can shift colours.

For HEIC photos, convert with the HEIC to JPG tool and leave "Keep EXIF metadata" unticked. The step-by-step guide covers the built-in options on every phone and computer.

When to keep it

Photographers keep EXIF for licensing and for sorting by lens and settings. Insurance claims and legal evidence are stronger with the original date and device intact. Archives want it. Keep the original file with its metadata, and share a stripped copy.

Questions