Every photo from a phone or camera is more than pixels. Most JPEG files also contain a block of hidden text called EXIF metadata. Depending on your settings it can include the camera model, the date and time, the lens settings, and sometimes the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken.

What can be inside

  • Camera and software: make, model, and sometimes the editing app.
  • Date and time: when the photo was taken.
  • GPS position: latitude and longitude, if location tagging was on for the camera.
  • Orientation, exposure and lens details.
  • Embedded thumbnails and colour profiles.

The location is the one that matters for privacy. A photo of your front door, your child's school or a parcel taken at home may include coordinates accurate to a few metres.

Do websites remove it for you?

Many large platforms remove location data from the version they display publicly, but you should not rely on that for every service. Sending a photo by email, attaching it to a forum post, uploading it to your own website, or sharing it as an original file can pass the metadata on exactly as it was. When in doubt, share a clean copy.

Step 1: Look at what the file says

Open the file in the viewer below. It shows the dimensions, format, camera details, date and, if present, a GPS position, all inside your browser without uploading the image anywhere.

Step 2: Make a clean copy

The tool can download a copy with the metadata removed. It redraws the picture in your browser, applies the correct orientation to the pixels, and saves it again. This means the photo stays the right way up, but the result is re-encoded: JPG output is very slightly different from the original, and it is not a lossless metadata edit. Keep your original file safe as the master.

Step 3: Turn off location tagging at the source

If you rarely need locations on photos, switch location access off for your camera app in your phone's privacy settings. Remember that your own photo library then no longer sorts pictures by place, so some people prefer to keep tagging on and strip it only when sharing.

Limits worth knowing

  • The viewer reads standard EXIF, PNG and WebP information and detects XMP, IPTC and colour-profile blocks, but manufacturer-specific private data is not decoded.
  • Screenshots usually carry no GPS, but they can still contain other text such as file names.
  • Metadata is only one risk. The picture itself can reveal a street sign, a house number or a reflection, so look at the content too.