Every photo your camera or phone takes carries a hidden diary: the EXIF metadata. It records the camera model, the lens, the shutter speed, aperture and ISO, the exact date and time — and very often the GPS coordinates of where you were standing. This free EXIF viewer reads that diary for you. Drop in any photo and it lists everything the file knows about itself, with a clear warning when GPS location data is present.
The important part: the photo never leaves your device. The reading happens entirely in your browser, so you can safely check pictures of your home, your kids or your workplace — exactly the photos whose locations you would least want to hand to a stranger’s server.
How to use the EXIF viewer
- Pick or drop a photo. Original files straight from a camera or phone carry the most data. JPG works best; TIFF and HEIC also carry EXIF. Screenshots and most PNGs have little or none.
- Read the table. You will see the file facts first, then the camera details: make, model, lens, date taken, exposure time, aperture, ISO and focal length when the camera recorded them.
- Check for GPS. If the photo stored its location, the latitude and longitude appear in the table and a warning box links to the exact spot on a map. That is the moment to decide whether this file is safe to share as-is.
Why everyone should check one photo today
Sell a bike online with a photo taken in your driveway and the buyer may also get your home address, encoded invisibly in the file. Post a holiday snap and it can reveal that your house is empty — with the exact dates. Most social platforms strip EXIF when you upload, but email attachments, cloud links and marketplace messages usually send the original file untouched. A ten-second check with this viewer tells you what you are really sending.
What the camera settings mean
Exposure time is how long the shutter stayed open (1/250 s means a fast, frozen moment; 2 s means a tripod shot). Aperture (f/1.8, f/8…) describes the lens opening: small numbers blur the background, large numbers keep everything sharp. ISO is sensitivity — high ISO means the photo was taken in low light. Focal length tells you how zoomed-in the lens was, in millimetres. Photographers use these fields to learn from their own shots; the rest of us can use them to prove when and how a photo was taken.
When a photo shows no data
An empty result is information too. Screenshots never had camera data. Images saved from WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram have usually been stripped by those services — which is good for privacy and bad for organizing a photo archive. And if a “photo” someone sent you has no EXIF at all but claims to be a fresh camera shot, that gap is worth noticing.
iPhone, Android and “real” cameras
Modern phones write rich EXIF: model, lens (including which of the several cameras fired), exposure, ISO and — unless you turned location services off for the camera — precise GPS. Dedicated cameras write even more, sometimes including the lens serial number and the focus distance, but usually no GPS unless the camera has a receiver built in. One wrinkle: photos that pass through an editor may carry two histories — the original camera block plus editing software tags — which is why the Software row is worth a glance. And note that the file’s own “modified” timestamp from your computer is not EXIF; it belongs to the file system and changes every time the file is copied, so never rely on it to date a photo.
También en español
¿Prefieres español? La versión en español de esta herramienta está en Extractor de Metadatos EXIF de Fotografías, con la misma lectura privada en tu dispositivo.
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Extractor de Metadatos EXIF de Fotografías — versión en español · Online Photo Editor · Background Remover.
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