How to check image metadata before you share a photo
The Discord or WhatsApp copy is often not the camera original. If you still have the JPEG from the phone, open that one. GPS lives there more often than in the compressed chat version.
How to check image metadata before you share a photo?
The Discord or WhatsApp copy is often not the camera original. If you still have the JPEG from the phone, open that one. GPS lives there more often than in the compressed chat version. JPEG and some other formats can store EXIF.
C2PA: Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity; C2PA specification 2.4; WhatsApp Help: media and documents; WhatsApp Help: longer videos
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Start with GPS, then the boring fields
JPEG and some other formats can store EXIF. The field that actually changes a sharing decision is usually location. Date, camera model, lens, software, copyright and XMP are worth a glance once you know whether a map pin is present.
| Field | Why look |
|---|---|
| GPS | Home, workplace, a client site |
| Date / time | A timeline you did not mean to publish |
| Camera / phone | Rarely sensitive, sometimes unnecessary |
| Software / comments | Internal tool names, leftover notes |
EXIF is a clue, not a court exhibit
A camera model in the header does not prove every pixel came from that body. Fields can be edited. GPS can be wrong. If you need signed history, that is C2PA, not ordinary EXIF. If you need a watermark check, that is a different layer again.
Inspect the copy you are about to send
- Keep the original.
- Parse the file in the browser when you can — the homepage cleaner does not need the photo on a processing API.
- Look for GPS first.
- Re-open the exported copy before you upload it.
Screenshots leak from the pixels
They often have less camera EXIF and more visible UI: names, tabs, order numbers, QR codes. Checking metadata is the wrong tool for that. Redact the pixels, then optionally run OCR on the export to see if a string you meant to hide is still readable.
You do not have to strip every field. Copyright can stay. Color profiles can stay. The useful habit is a sharing copy, not a religion about metadata.
What ExifTool 12.76 printed on one fixture, 22 October 2026
Viewers such as the ToolsZone image metadata viewer, ImageOnline’s EXIF viewer, and Metadata2Go describe groups (camera, GPS, author) and offer a decimal pin or a degrees-minutes-seconds line. This section is the dump behind that kind of screen, from a file we made and read on this machine.
Pillow 10.2.0 drew an 800×600 RGB image, mostly flat color plus the text “CPK fixture 2026-10-22”, and saved JPEG quality 90, PNG, and WebP quality 90. ExifTool 12.76 then wrote the same tags onto a copy of each: GPS latitude 10.5 N, longitude 20.25 E, altitude 12.5 m, Make CPKFixture, Model TestPhone, DateTimeOriginal 2026:10:22 12:00:00, Artist “Fixture Author”, Software “CPK measure 2026-10-22”. The coordinates are a labeled fixture, not a place anyone lives. With -n, ExifTool printed 10.5, 20.25, and 12.5. Without -n, the composite GPS line was 10 deg 30' 0.00" N, 20 deg 15' 0.00" E, 12.5 m Above Sea Level. A map pin and a degrees-minutes-seconds line are two prints of those stored numbers.
| Copy | Bytes | GPS in ExifTool 12.76 |
|---|---|---|
| JPEG quality 90, no tags | 14,147 | No |
| Same JPEG plus the tags above | 14,601 | Yes. The tags added 454 bytes. |
| PNG, no tags | 7,943 | No |
| Same PNG plus the tags | 8,529 | Yes. The tags added 586 bytes. Make, Model, date, and GPS were readable. |
| WebP quality 90, no tags | 5,046 | No. ExifTool called the file WEBP. |
| Same WebP plus the tags | 5,524 | Yes. The tags added 478 bytes. ExifTool then called it Extended WEBP. |
This drawing is mostly one color, so PNG and WebP came out smaller than the JPEG. A detailed photograph will not keep that size order. What held on all three copies is the tag set: the same latitude, longitude, altitude, make, model, and original date were readable after the write.
The command that printed the decimals was:
exiftool -n -GPSLatitude -GPSLongitude -GPSAltitude -Make -Model -DateTimeOriginal photo.jpgApple’s iPhone guide, See photo and video information, says to open the photo, then swipe up or tap the Info button. The details can include the capturing device, date and time, camera metadata such as lens, shutter speed, and file size, and where the photo was taken, including a map link and an Adjust control for the location. Apple’s map library page says that view includes items that have embedded location information. Microsoft’s Windows 11 Photos page, Search photos, says photos include latitude and longitude as part of their embedded data, that Microsoft uses that information to determine where the photo or video was taken, and that Microsoft does not store this information. Location search there is by city, state, or country. Android gallery menus differ by vendor. The check we actually ran is ExifTool, and the image metadata viewer reads the file you open in the browser.
On a second copy of the JPEG we also wrote an IPTC caption (“Fixture caption for the IPTC test.”) and a different XMP description (“Fixture XMP description.”). The full file was 18,138 bytes. exiftool -EXIF:all= left it at 17,684 bytes and removed Make, Model, the original date, and GPS. The IPTC caption and the XMP description were still listed. Clearing “EXIF” on that file did not clear the caption. The field-by-field table is on what IPTC photo metadata is.