Check photo metadata what your photo reveals
Last updated: October 2026
Before you attach that photo to an e-mail, a listing or a forum post, this free tool shows you exactly what's hidden inside, location, device, timestamps, names, no account, no daily limit. Drop it below and find out. The check lists the privacy-sensitive fields it finds (location, device, timestamps, names) and prepares a cleaned copy at the same time; downloading it is optional. Want this scanned automatically across a whole archive, or built straight into your own upload flow? Hire us to build that: same team, a working demo before you pay.
Related: ScanReviver: Scan to PDF & Compress PDF.
Inspect a photo now
lists what it finds · cleaned copy optionalHow to read the result
- 📍 GPS location: exact coordinates of where the photo was taken. The single most sensitive field; if it's there, think twice before sharing the original anywhere. More on this at remove GPS from a photo.
- 📷 Camera / phone and 🔢 serial number: identify your device. Serial numbers can link otherwise unrelated photos to the same camera.
- 🕐 Taken on: date and time to the second. Combined with location this reconstructs where you were and when.
- 💻 Software and 👤 name embedded: editing tools and author fields, often written in by cameras or photo apps without you noticing.
- Tag count: the total number of metadata tags the cleaned copy no longer carries. Structural fields a viewer needs (dimensions, orientation, colour profile) are not counted as personal metadata.
Typical results
A fresh phone photo commonly carries 20 to 60 tags including location and device details. A screenshot usually shows nothing personal. An image downloaded from a social network is often already stripped, because large platforms remove most metadata on upload. When your file is already clean, the check says so instead of inventing findings.
An EXIF viewer built for privacy, not for photographers
A classic EXIF viewer prints every raw tag the file holds, which is what you want when you tune exposure settings. This one answers a different question: what does this photo tell a stranger about me? It sorts what it finds by who it could identify: where you were (GPS), what took the photo (device make, model, serial number), when (timestamp) and who (software and embedded names). If you need the full raw list as well, a desktop EXIF viewer such as ExifTool is the right second step, and the same page can then clean the copy you decide to share.
Other photo jobs, from cleaning up a picture to removing its background, are listed in the photo tools hub.
Sources
- Exif: Exif is the standard for camera image metadata
Questions about the tools
Can I check a photo without cleaning it?
The check and the clean happen in one pass: you see what was found, and a cleaned copy is prepared alongside it. Downloading it is optional, and "delete now" wipes it immediately. Your original upload is deleted right after processing either way.
Does the check show every single tag?
It highlights the privacy-sensitive fields and shows the total count of removed tags. It is a privacy check, not a full EXIF laboratory; if you need every raw field, a desktop tool like ExifTool shows the complete list.
Why does my photo show no metadata?
Screenshots, images saved from social networks and photos taken with camera location off often carry little or nothing personal. The tool tells you explicitly when a file was already clean.
Is the check private?
Yes. The upload is deleted the moment it has been processed and the cleaned copy is wiped within 45 minutes, or immediately via "delete now". Nothing is shared or used to train anything; see the privacy policy.
Can I see the exact GPS location stored in my photo?
Yes. If GPS coordinates are present, the check displays them as a decimal latitude and longitude: precise enough to identify a building. You can then decide whether to download the cleaned copy or just close the tab; the upload is deleted either way.
Can I check what date and time a photo was taken?
Yes. If the file carries a timestamp, it appears in the results alongside the GPS and device fields. The timestamp records the moment the shutter fired, from the phone or camera's internal clock.
What is EXIF data?
EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format: it's the block of information a camera or phone writes into a photo at the moment it's taken: device make and model, exposure settings, GPS coordinates and a timestamp. It's the main source of personal metadata in a photo, though editing software can add more through XMP and IPTC blocks.
Does the check work on HEIC photos from an iPhone?
Yes. Drop the HEIC file directly into the tool. iPhones save HEIC photos with a full EXIF block, often carrying more tags than an equivalent JPEG, so a raw HEIC from the camera roll will usually show location, device details and a timestamp.
What is a HEIC file?
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is Apple's default photo format since iOS 11: the same visual quality as JPEG at roughly half the file size. It keeps a fuller EXIF block than most JPEGs, which is exactly what this checker reads.
Does it work on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows?
Yes, in any browser and with nothing to install. On an iPhone, open Safari or Chrome and upload straight from Photos (HEIC works as it is). On Android, pick the photo from the gallery. On a Mac or a Windows PC, drag the file from Finder or Explorer into the tab. A Linux browser works the same way.
Is it free?
Yes: no account, no card and no watermark, as often as you like, and the upload is deleted right after processing.
What does the metadata check show me?
The most privacy-sensitive fields found in the file (GPS coordinates, camera or phone model, date and time taken, editing software, embedded author names and device serial numbers), plus a count of all metadata tags that were removed in the cleaned copy. It is a readable list, not a raw dump of every tag, and if a photo carries nothing it says so instead of guessing.
Does it check for AI-generated metadata, or just camera EXIF?
This isn't built as a detector for ai images specifically: it doesn't flag whether a photo is ai generated. It just reads whatever EXIF, XMP and IPTC fields are actually embedded, camera or ai alike, and shows what's there. There's no app to check photo metadata here: it runs in this browser tool, no install required.
Does it work on a photo I got through WhatsApp?
Yes, once the photo is saved to your device. Keep in mind what you are checking is the copy you received: a normal WhatsApp send re-compresses the photo and drops most metadata on the way, so there is often little left, while "send as document" keeps the original fields.
Does this strip photo metadata, or only show it?
Both, in one pass: the report shows what was found, and a cleaned copy that strips photo metadata is prepared alongside it automatically. Downloading the cleaned copy is optional.
Does an uscis photo check happen here too?
No: this only reads hidden EXIF metadata (GPS, camera model, timestamps), not the visual requirements a USCIS photo check needs, like background colour or head size. For that, use PassportNinja's passport photo tool instead.
Which file types and sizes can I check?
JPG, PNG, WebP and HEIC files, up to 60 MB. HEIC photos straight from an iPhone work as they are.
Where these fields come from in the first place
The report is really a short history of the file. Each group of fields was written by a different step, and knowing which is which tells you a lot:
- Your camera or phone writes the EXIF block at the moment of the shot: model, lens, exposure, the timestamp from the device clock and. If location services were on for the camera: the coordinates. This is the part that's there without anyone choosing to add it.
- Maker notes are the manufacturer's private area inside that block. They're undocumented and vary per brand, which is where things like a shutter count, a lens serial or a body serial number hide.
- Editing software adds XMP and IPTC. Author, copyright, keywords, captions, a rating, the name of the program. If your name shows up in a photo you never signed, it's usually because a photo app filled in an author field once and has been doing it ever since.
- Scanners and phone document modes add their own software tags, and no location: a scan knows the day you scanned it, never the day the picture was taken.
Which is also why some files come back nearly empty, and that's not a failure of the check:
- Screenshots have almost nothing to find: there was no camera involved.
- A photo that came to you through a chat app was usually re-compressed on the way, which throws the metadata away as a side effect. What you're looking at is the platform's copy, not the original.
- Images saved from websites are often already stripped, because most publishing systems remove metadata when they resize an upload.
- A file someone edited and exported can be clean of the camera's data but carry the editor's instead.
Reading the report as a privacy check
Not every field matters equally. In rough order of how much it can actually expose:
- Coordinates. Five decimal places is street-level, and a photo taken indoors points at a specific building: often a home address. This is the one to act on.
- The serial number. Underrated and the hardest to think about, because it's invisible in everyday use: the same number appears in every photo that camera has ever taken. Two listings posted under different names, or a public gallery and an anonymous account, can be tied to one device by nothing more than that field.
- Timestamp plus location together. Individually mundane, together a record of where you were and when. A run of holiday photos posted while you're away says something about your house that has nothing to do with photography.
- An embedded name. Straightforwardly identifying, and almost always there by accident.
- Camera model and software. Rarely sensitive on their own, but they narrow a set of "anonymous" photos to one type of setup.
A quick rule that covers most situations: photos going to people who already know you need no thought. Photos going somewhere public or to a stranger, a marketplace listing, a rental ad, a forum, a dating profile, an insurance claim, an image attached to a complaint, are worth checking before they leave. Platforms differ in what they strip and change their minds without telling anyone, so checking the file you hold is the only version of this you control. The cleaned copy prepared alongside the report is the same lossless strip the remover does: the metadata goes, the pixels stay exactly as they were.
What we see people check, and when
Most uploads to this checker aren't "before I post this": they're "after", when someone has already shared a photo and wants to know, after the fact, what was in it. That changes what the check needs to do: it's not enough to say a field is gone now, people want to know whether it was ever there, because a listing or a message already sent can't be un-shared. That's why the tool always shows what it found before offering to clean it, rather than cleaning silently: a silent clean would answer the wrong question. The other pattern worth knowing: HEIC photos straight off an iPhone tend to carry more than a JPG saved from the same phone, because HEIC keeps a fuller tag set by default and some apps' JPG exports already drop a few fields on the way out. So two photos of the same scene, from the same phone, can show a different tag count purely because of the export format: worth remembering before assuming a "clean" result means the original file was ever clean, or the other way round.
Read on
Curious what all those fields mean and how they get there? Read what your photos reveal. Ready to strip a photo for sharing? The EXIF removal guide walks through it step by step.
By Sam Ridder, I build and run ShinobiTools on my own hardware, on my own. Who I am.