A photo you take with a modern phone or DSLR carries far more than pixels. Embedded in the file header is the camera body, the lens, the aperture, the shutter speed, the ISO, the GPS coordinates where the shutter fired, the millisecond timestamp, the software that touched the file last, sometimes the photographer's name, sometimes a thumbnail of the original before edits. This viewer reads all of it directly in your browser via the exifr library — no upload, no third-party log, nothing cached on a server. Useful for a quick sanity check on your own shots, a privacy audit before posting publicly, or forensic verification on a photo whose origin you need to confirm.
The same metadata that helps you trace a shot can leak the address of your home, the school your kids attend, or the route of your morning run. Read it, decide what to keep, strip the rest before sharing.
How to use
- Drop or pick an image — JPEG, HEIC/HEIF, TIFF, or PNG with embedded metadata.
- Read the parsed metadata — camera, lens, exposure, GPS, software, timestamps all displayed in grouped sections.
- Copy specific fields — click any value to copy it to your clipboard.
- Cross-check GPS — paste the coordinates into Google Maps or your geotag tool of choice. The viewer keeps them as raw lat/lon so you can compute the distance to a known landmark.
What EXIF data looks like
Modern cameras and smartphones embed dozens of metadata tags into every photo. The most common groups:
- Camera — make, model, firmware version, lens make / model, focal length.
- Exposure — aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, metering mode, white balance.
- GPS — latitude, longitude, altitude, direction, sometimes the location name (mostly on smartphones).
- Timestamps — original capture time, last modification, sub-second precision, time zone offset (newer cameras).
- Software — the editing app or pipeline that touched the file last, useful for forensic checks.
- Author / copyright — name, email, contact, copyright string — populated by photography apps and DSLRs that have been configured with owner info.
EXIF vs XMP vs IPTC — different formats, different homes
Photo metadata is not one schema. It is three overlapping ones plus everyone's custom extensions:
- EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format). Originated by the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association in 1995. Binary tag- value pairs in the JPEG / TIFF / HEIF header. Camera-centric: shutter, aperture, ISO, GPS, sensor data. Lives at APP1 segment in JPEG.
- XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform). Adobe-introduced XML-based format. Used for editing history, ratings, keywords, color labels — anything Adobe apps add. Lives in its own JPEG segment and can span multiple files via XMP sidecars (
.xmp). - IPTC-IIM and IPTC Core. News-industry metadata from the International Press Telecommunications Council. Caption, keywords, byline, copyright, location names, headline. Used in newsrooms, stock agencies, museums.
The viewer parses all three when present. You can have a JPEG with EXIF GPS, XMP author info, and IPTC caption all describing the same shot.
Privacy and security — the GPS leak
The most consequential field is GPS. If your phone's location services are on when you shoot, every JPEG you take carries the latitude and longitude where you stood when you fired the shutter, usually accurate to about 5 metres. Sharing the photo on most social networks strips EXIF on upload, but emailing it, attaching it to a chat, posting to a forum, or hosting it on your own site preserves the coordinates. Real harm scenarios:
- Home address leak.A photo of your cat taken in your living room reveals the apartment's GPS coordinates.
- School / daycare location. A photo of a child at pickup time pinpoints the school.
- Running route disclosure. Strava-style fitness photos can map your daily route, including the start at home.
- Press source exposure.A leaked photo's GPS can identify the building where it was taken, exposing a confidential source.
The viewer runs entirely in your browser via the exifr library. The image is opened as a blob URL inside your browser and parsed locally. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is logged, nothing is cached. Verify in DevTools Network — viewing metadata produces zero outbound requests.
How to strip EXIF before sharing
- macOS Preview.Tools → Show Inspector → GPS tab → "Remove Location Info."
- Windows Explorer.Right-click → Properties → Details → "Remove Properties and Personal Information."
- iOS Photos (iOS 15+). Share sheet → Options → toggle off Location.
- Android Gallery / Google Photos.Share sheet → Remove geolocation / Hide photo's location.
- Command line.
exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -ColorSpaceTags photo.jpg — strips everything but keeps the color profile so colors do not shift. - ImageMagick.
convert input.jpg -strip output.jpg — quick and lossy-resave-free.
Common use cases
- Photographer toolkit — verify shutter / aperture / ISO on your own shots without opening Lightroom.
- Submission review — confirm the camera body / lens claimed on a photo contest entry.
- GPS extraction — pull coordinates for geotag map workflows or re-attach to other formats.
- Forensic audit — check timestamps and software fields when image authenticity is in question.
- Privacy audit before sharing — see what location and device info is buried in a photo before posting it publicly.
- Stolen-photo investigation — recover the original camera serial number from a shot reposted without attribution.
Common pitfalls
- Assuming social networks strip EXIF. Most do, but not all, and not always — Twitter strips, Instagram strips on upload but X-DM may preserve, Discord preserves on certain file types. Test before you trust.
- Forgetting the embedded thumbnail. Some JPEGs carry a small thumbnail inside EXIF that survives even after a crop — leaking the pre-crop original. Use
exiftool -ThumbnailImage= to strip it explicitly. - Time zone confusion.Pre-2018 cameras stored local time without offset, so reconstructing UTC requires guessing the photographer's zone.
- Trusting the timestamp. EXIF date is easy to fake with a hex editor. Forensic verification needs corroborating evidence (server logs, network timestamps, other photos in the same session).
- HEIC support varies. Older browsers cannot decode HEIC at all. The parser handles the metadata sidecar even when the image itself does not render.
Why use this EXIF viewer?
Most online EXIF viewers either upload your image to a backend or strip out GPS data while parsing "for safety," both of which defeat the purpose if you actually need the location. This one runs in your browser via exifr, shows every field your image carries, and lets you copy individual values without committing to a download flow. Pair with the built-in EXIF removal in your OS or photo app when you decide to sanitize before sharing.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Which file formats carry EXIF metadata?
JPEG, HEIC / HEIF, TIFF, and certain PNGs (via the eXIf chunk). WebP also supports EXIF via the EXIF chunk. Most raw camera formats (CR3, NEF, ARW) carry rich metadata too but require format-specific parsers — this viewer uses exifr, which supports the common consumer formats out of the box.
Q: Why does my photo show no GPS?
Either location services were off when you shot, or the platform stripped GPS on upload (most social networks do this), or the file was re-saved by an editor that removed it (Lightroom can be configured to strip, macOS Preview's "Remove Location Info" does too). DSLR shots without a paired GPS module also lack the coordinates by default.
Q: Is my image uploaded to a server?
No. Parsing runs entirely in your browser through the exifr library. The image is opened as a local blob URL and never leaves your machine. Confirm in DevTools Network — viewing metadata produces zero outbound requests.
Q: What is the difference between EXIF, XMP, and IPTC?
EXIF is camera-generated binary metadata: shutter, aperture, GPS, sensor info. XMP is Adobe's XML-based extensible metadata: edit history, ratings, keywords. IPTC is news-industry metadata: caption, byline, copyright, headline. A modern file can carry all three simultaneously — the viewer parses each.
Q: How do I strip EXIF from photos I am about to post?
macOS Preview → Tools → Show Inspector → GPS → Remove Location Info. Windows Explorer → right-click → Properties → Details → Remove Properties. iOS Share sheet has an Options toggle. Command-line: exiftool -all= photo.jpg nukes everything, or convert input.jpg -strip output.jpg via ImageMagick.
Q: Can EXIF timestamps and GPS be faked?
Yes, trivially. EXIF fields are plain bytes in the header — any text editor or exiftoolcan rewrite them. For forensic verification, EXIF alone is insufficient evidence. Cross-check against server upload logs, file system timestamps, embedded thumbnails (which sometimes differ from the main image after editing), and the camera's serial number against a known body.
Related guides
Image Optimization for Web Developers: Formats, Tools, and Techniques
JPEG vs PNG was the question in 2012; today it is WebP vs AVIF, plus srcset, lazy loading, and SVG inlining. The optimizations that actually move Largest Contentful Paint.
Image EXIF and Privacy: What Your Photos Carry, and How to Strip It
Every photo from a modern phone or camera carries GPS coordinates, a device fingerprint, and a timestamp. Most of the time nobody cares. The cases when it matters are the ones worth knowing about.
Image Compression vs. Resizing: Picking the Right Optimization for Web Performance
Compression shrinks bytes per pixel; resizing shrinks the pixel count. When each wins, when you need both, and how srcset plus AVIF tie it together in a real responsive image setup.
Image format compatibility
How the formats this tool handles behave across browsers and use cases. Useful when deciding what to convert to rather than just from.
| Format | Compression | Alpha | Browser support | Best for |
|---|
| JPEG | Lossy (DCT) | no | Universal | Photographs. 70–85% quality typically gives best visual-to-size ratio. |
| HEIC | Lossy (HEVC intra-frame) | yes | Safari only on the web | iPhone camera output. Convert to JPEG/WebP before publishing to the web. |
| TIFF | None / LZW / DEFLATE / JPEG | yes | Not supported — desktop image editors only | Print, scanning, archival. Convert to AVIF/JPEG for web delivery. |