EXIF Metadata Viewer

What this tool does

The EXIF Metadata Viewer reads the hidden metadata embedded inside a photo and displays it in a clear, grouped layout. Drop or select any JPEG, TIFF, HEIC, or WebP file and the tool immediately extracts its EXIF, GPS and image-information fields. Results are organised into five sections: Camera (make, model, software, dimensions), Lens (make, model, focal length, 35 mm equivalent), Exposure (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, bias, program, metering, flash, white balance), Date & Time (taken, created, modified), and GPS (latitude, longitude, altitude). Nothing leaves your browser; the entire extraction runs locally using the open-source exifr library.

Why you might need it

Photos look like simple images, but they carry a surprising amount of data that is invisible to anyone just viewing the picture. That hidden layer can work for you or against you, depending on the context.

When it works for you: photographers use EXIF to keep a record of the camera settings that produced a well-exposed shot, so they can recreate those conditions reliably. Photo editors use date-taken metadata to sort thousands of holiday photos into chronological order without renaming files manually. Researchers and journalists use embedded GPS coordinates to verify where and when an image was captured.

When it works against you: sharing a photo directly from your phone — as an email attachment or a file shared over a messaging app — often carries your GPS coordinates, your phone model, and the exact date and time. Before sharing product photos on a website, listing photos on a marketplace, or submitting images for a competition, it is worth checking whether they reveal more than you intend. This tool gives you the complete picture so you can decide.

How to use it

1. Drop a photo onto the upload area, or click it to open a file picker.
2. Wait a moment while the metadata is extracted — large RAW-quality JPEGs from a dedicated camera may take a second or two.
3. Read the grouped sections. If your photo contains GPS data, a highlighted warning appears alongside the latitude and longitude values.
4. Use the latitude and longitude numbers to verify the location by pasting them into a mapping application if needed.
5. If you want to remove the metadata from the photo before sharing it, use the companion EXIF Metadata Remover tool.

Common pitfalls

Not all JPEGs carry EXIF. If your image came from a web download, a screenshot, or an export from software like Figma, Canva or Photoshop “Save for Web”, it will likely have no metadata — and the tool will tell you so plainly. This is not a failure; it means the image is already clean.

Orientation is one of the more confusing fields. Smartphones record a rotation value in EXIF so that a portrait-mode photo stored with landscape pixels can be displayed the right way up by any viewer that respects orientation. When you view the raw orientation number (1 through 8), it maps to a specific rotation and flip combination. Browsers handle this automatically for <img> tags but canvas operations require manual correction.

Tips for best results

If you are investigating a photo that came from an unknown source, look at the Make and Model fields first — they tell you which device took the picture. Compare the DateTimeOriginal against any claimed date to check for inconsistencies. GPS coordinates to six decimal places locate a position to within about 11 centimetres, so even a heavily cropped photo can still give away the precise location where it was taken.

For photo-organising workflows, EXIF date fields are more reliable than file system modification dates, which can change during copying, compression or backup. The DateTimeOriginal field is set by the camera at the moment of capture and is not modified by subsequent operations.