What is EXIF data?

Last reviewed: August 2026 · by Ferran Sarrió

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a standard for storing information inside an image file, alongside the actual picture. It was originally defined for digital cameras and is now written by virtually every smartphone and most cameras.

Where does EXIF data come from?

When a camera or phone captures a photo, its firmware or camera app writes EXIF tags into the file describing the conditions under which the photo was taken: the device, lens, exposure settings, timestamp and, if location access is granted, GPS coordinates.

Examples of EXIF fields

Common EXIF fields include Make and Model (device manufacturer/model), DateTimeOriginal (capture timestamp), FNumber and ExposureTime (exposure settings), Orientation (rotation), and GPSLatitude/GPSLongitude (location, when available).

What EXIF can reveal

Depending on which fields are present, EXIF data can reveal the approximate location where a photo was taken, when it was taken, and what device captured it. Not every photo contains all of these — it depends on the device, app and any editing software involved.

Limitations

EXIF describes the file, not the person in it. It says nothing about who is in the photo unless that information was separately entered (e.g. via an Author field). It also does not persist through every sharing channel — many social platforms strip EXIF data automatically on upload, though this varies by platform and is not something we can verify on their behalf.

How to view or remove EXIF data

You can inspect a photo's EXIF data with our metadata viewer, and remove it with our metadata remover, both of which use the same underlying analysis engine.