image tool
EXIF viewer online
Drop a JPG and see the EXIF data the camera wrote into it: make and model, lens, the date and time the shot was taken, exposure, orientation, colour profile and any GPS position. The file is read inside this page, so a photo with a home address in its metadata never leaves your device to find out.
Loading the tool…
- Runs on your device, nothing is uploaded
- Free, no sign in
- No watermark, no file limit
How it works
- 1
Choose a JPG
Pick the photo straight off the camera or phone if you can. A copy that went through a messaging app has usually lost its EXIF on the way.
- 2
Read the rows by group
Camera, shot, file, location and credit rows sit in separate blocks, so the date taken and the GPS position are easy to find.
- 3
Check the location warning
If the photo carries coordinates, a yellow note says so before anything else, because that is the row most people did not know was there.
- 4
Copy what you need
Copy every row as plain text for a report, an insurance claim or a photo credit, then close the tab. Nothing is kept.
What EXIF is and where it lives
EXIF is a block of tags a camera writes into a JPEG at the moment it saves the picture. It sits in an APP1 segment near the start of the file, laid out like a small TIFF file with its own directories: one for the camera, one for the exposure, one for GPS. The tags are standardised by CIPA, the Japanese camera industry body, so a date taken written by one brand reads the same in software from another. This tool walks those directories directly in the page and prints the tags that matter to most people, which is why it can show results the moment a file is picked.
The date taken is not the file date
Your computer shows a modified date for every file, and it changes when the file is copied, emailed or edited. The EXIF date taken is written once by the camera and survives copying, which makes it the date to quote when a photo documents something: a site condition, damage before a repair, the state of a rental at move in. Newer cameras also write the UTC offset, so the time can be read correctly even if the photo was taken in another time zone. When there is no offset, the time is the camera clock as it was set, right or wrong.
Location data and sharing photos
Phones add GPS coordinates to photos by default unless location access for the camera is switched off. The coordinates are often accurate to a few metres, which is a house, not a suburb. Many social networks remove EXIF when a photo is posted, but email attachments, file sharing links and messaging apps sent as files often keep it. If this tool shows latitude and longitude, assume anyone you send the original file to can see the same numbers. Export a copy without metadata, or turn off location for the camera, before sharing photos of a home or a child.
Orientation and why photos appear rotated
Cameras rarely rotate the pixels when you hold the phone sideways. They store the image as the sensor saw it and write an orientation tag saying how to turn it. Software that honours the tag shows the photo upright, and software that ignores it shows it on its side. If a photo looks right on your phone and sideways somewhere else, the orientation row explains why: a value of 6 means the viewer should turn it 90 degrees clockwise. Rotating and resaving the file in an editor usually fixes the pixels and resets the tag.
Using photos as evidence in a document
When a photo backs up a report, the details that make it useful are the date taken, the place and the device. Copy those rows next to each photo, and keep the original files as they came off the camera, because every resave can change or drop the tags. In the AI document generator you can describe the report and paste the dates and locations in as text, so each photo in the finished document carries a caption with the facts it was taken under.
Limits
- JPG only. PNG and WebP usually carry little or no EXIF, and HEIC photos from an iPhone need converting to JPG first.
- Only the common tags are shown. Maker notes, the private blocks each camera brand adds, are skipped because every brand lays them out differently.
- The GPS rows appear only when the photo has them, and the coordinates are shown, never sent to a map service.
- A missing field means the camera or the last app that saved the file did not write it, not that the tool missed it.
What it does not do
- It does not remove or edit EXIF data.
- It does not upload the photo or look the location up on a map.
- It does not read video files or RAW camera formats.
Questions people ask
Can EXIF data be faked or changed?
Yes. EXIF tags are ordinary bytes in the file, and many editors and command line tools can rewrite the date, the camera or the location. That makes EXIF a useful record rather than proof. For a dispute, keep the original file, note where it came from, and if the stakes are high, have the device itself examined rather than relying on the tags alone.
Why does my photo show no EXIF data at all?
Most often the photo has been through an app that strips metadata: a messaging app, a social network, a screenshot, or an editor set to export for the web. A screenshot of a photo has no camera EXIF because it is a new image made by the screen. Ask for the original file, sent as a document rather than a photo, to get the tags back.
Does an iPhone photo have EXIF data?
An iPhone saves photos as HEIC by default, and those carry the same kind of metadata, including location if it is switched on. This tool reads JPG only, so change the camera format to Most Compatible, or export the photo as JPG first. When an iPhone shares a photo by email or AirDrop it may convert it to JPG and keep the tags.
How accurate is the GPS position in a photo?
It depends on the signal the phone had when the shot was taken. Outdoors with a clear sky, a phone is usually accurate to within several metres. Indoors, in a city canyon or with location set to approximate, it can be out by a block or more. The altitude row is less reliable than latitude and longitude.
What is the difference between the colour space tag and an embedded profile?
The colour space tag is one number saying the image is sRGB or uncalibrated. An embedded ICC profile is the full description of the colours, often Display P3 on recent phones or Adobe RGB on cameras. When a profile is embedded, colour managed software uses it and the tag matters less. A photo with neither is assumed to be sRGB.
Put the photos and their details in a report
Take what you made here into documents.
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Background reading: the question page on this.
Sources
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .