See everything your camera hid inside the file
Every digital photo carries a secret payload. Your camera records dozens, sometimes hundreds, of data points and tucks them inside the image file where you can’t see them. Shutter speed. Aperture. ISO. GPS coordinates. The exact make and model of your phone. Even which direction you were facing when you pressed the shutter.
This tool pulls all of that out and shows it to you in a clean table. Upload an image, hit one button, and you’ll see every EXIF tag, IPTC field, XMP record, and GPS coordinate embedded in the file. It’s like an X-ray for your photos.
How to inspect a photo
- Upload your image with “Choose File”.
- Click “View Metadata”.
- Browse the results, everything’s laid out in a readable table.
- Copy individual values or the whole set.
Try this: upload a photo from your phone right now. You’ll probably find your GPS coordinates, your phone model, the lens aperture, the timestamp down to the second, and the software version that processed the image. Most people are surprised by how much is in there.
What the tool surfaces
- Camera EXIF: shutter speed, aperture (f/1.8, f/2.8, etc.), ISO, focal length, flash status, metering mode
- Device info: camera make, model, serial number, firmware version
- GPS data: latitude, longitude, altitude, direction
- Timestamps: original capture time, last modification, digitization date
- Color info: color space, ICC profile, bit depth
- Image properties: pixel dimensions, DPI/PPI, orientation
- Software tags: editing software name and version, XMP edit history
- Editorial data: IPTC captions, keywords, copyright, creator info
Why you’d want to look
Learning photography gets way easier with EXIF. You took 200 photos at a street fair. Some are gorgeous. Some are blurry messes. Upload the good ones and check the settings. f/2.8, 1/500s, ISO 400, that combo worked. Now you know what to aim for next time. Comparing EXIF across your best shots reveals patterns you’d never notice otherwise.
Privacy check before posting. You’re about to upload a photo to a forum or marketplace. Does it contain your home address as GPS coordinates? Your camera’s serial number? Your full name in the copyright field? Five seconds with this tool tells you. If anything’s there that shouldn’t be, run the image through the EXIF Data Remover before sharing.
Forensic verification. Someone sends you a photo claiming it was taken yesterday in New York. The metadata says it was shot three months ago in Buenos Aires with a different camera than they claim to own. Metadata doesn’t lie (though it can be faked, that’s a different conversation).
Debugging print and display problems. Your image looks fine on screen but prints with weird colors. The metadata reveals it’s in AdobeRGB color space but your printer expects sRGB. Or the DPI is set to 72 when print needs 300. These details live in the metadata and they explain a lot of mysterious issues.
Found something in the metadata you don’t want shared? The EXIF Data Remover strips everything while keeping the image pixel-identical.
Metadata questions
What kinds of metadata will I see?
Everything the file contains. EXIF (camera settings), IPTC (editorial info), XMP (software and edit history), GPS coordinates, color profiles, resolution data, and any custom tags the camera or software added.
Do all images have metadata?
Phone and camera photos almost always do. Screenshots and computer-generated images usually have minimal metadata, maybe just dimensions and creation date. Images that have been run through a stripping tool or uploaded to certain social platforms (Facebook strips most EXIF) may have nothing left.
Will I see GPS coordinates?
If they’re there. Smartphones with location services enabled embed GPS into every photo by default. If the photographer turned off location tagging, there won’t be any GPS data to show.
Do you store my image?
No. The server extracts the metadata, sends it to your browser, and discards the image data immediately. Nothing is kept.
Does this work with RAW files?
It’s built for web formats, JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF. Camera-specific RAW formats (CR2, NEF, ARW) might not be fully parsed. For RAW metadata inspection, you’ll need something like ExifTool or Lightroom.