What the EXIF reader shows
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of metadata that cameras and phones write into every photo: the make and model, lens, exposure settings, the date and time the shutter fired, orientation, software used, and — if location services were on — GPS coordinates. This tool reads that block from a JPG, HEIC, TIFF, PNG or WebP file and lists every tag it finds, including the GPS position with a link to a map. The file is parsed in your browser; it is never uploaded, which is the point when the question is “what does this photo reveal about me?”
What the main tags mean
| Tag | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Make / Model | Apple / iPhone 15 Pro | Camera body |
| LensModel | iPhone 15 Pro back camera 6.86mm f/1.78 | Lens used |
| DateTimeOriginal | 2026:06:14 18:32:07 | When the shutter fired (camera's local time) |
| ExposureTime | 1/250 | Shutter speed in seconds |
| FNumber | f/1.8 | Aperture — lower lets in more light, blurs background |
| ISO | 100 | Sensor sensitivity — higher is brighter but noisier |
| FocalLength | 24 mm | Lens focal length; with crop factor gives field of view |
| Flash | Off, did not fire | |
| Orientation | Rotate 90 CW | How the image should be turned for display |
| GPSLatitude / GPSLongitude | 13.7563 N, 100.5018 E | Where the photo was taken |
| Software | Adobe Lightroom 8.1 | Last program that wrote the file |
| ImageWidth / ImageHeight | 4032 × 3024 | Pixel dimensions |
The privacy angle
Location is the tag that matters most. A photo of your living room, your child, or a for-sale item taken at home can contain coordinates accurate to a few metres. Most major platforms — Facebook, Instagram, X, WhatsApp — strip EXIF on upload, but many do not: email attachments, direct file transfers, personal websites, marketplace listings and some forums pass it through unchanged. Check a photo here before sharing it outside a big platform, and if it carries GPS data, remove it first: converting or compressing the image with any of the tools on this site strips all EXIF, or you can turn off location tagging in your camera settings.
Useful things EXIF tells you
- Learning photography — see exactly what settings produced a shot you like, or diagnose why one is blurry (too slow a shutter) or noisy (too high an ISO).
- Sorting a photo library — DateTimeOriginal is the true capture time, even when file dates have been changed by copying.
- Checking authenticity — a “straight from the camera” image that lists Photoshop as the software has been edited. Absence of EXIF is also a signal: screenshots and heavily processed images have none.
- Verifying gear — confirming which lens or body was used for a particular photo when reviewing equipment.
- Recovering orientation — a photo that appears sideways in one program but upright in another has an Orientation tag that the first program is ignoring.
EXIF, IPTC and XMP
EXIF is one of three metadata blocks a photo can carry. IPTC holds captions, keywords, creator and copyright fields written by editing software and newsrooms. XMP is Adobe's extensible format that can hold both, plus edit history and ratings. This tool focuses on EXIF, which is where camera data and GPS live; XMP and IPTC fields are shown when present.
Why some files have no EXIF
- Screenshots, renders and graphics exported from design tools never had a camera to record it.
- Images downloaded from social platforms have had it stripped.
- Images passed through a canvas-based converter, resizer or compressor (including the tools here) are redrawn without metadata.
- Messaging apps often re-encode photos and drop it, though not all do.