Free EXIF Viewer — Check Any Photo's Metadata Online
Drop a photo below — JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP, TIFF, or RAW — and every EXIF tag it carries appears instantly: GPS coordinates, camera and lens, exposure settings, timestamps, and the software that last touched the file. It runs client-side, so your photo is never uploaded to a server. No sign-up, no limit.
Drop photos here or click to browse
JPG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP — upload one or multiple images
Why Use an EXIF Viewer?
Because the file says more than the picture does, and the part with consequences is the location. Nothing on screen tells you whether a photo is carrying coordinates — the only way to know is to open the metadata and look.
What the GPS tags actually give away
If location services were on for the camera, your phone wrote GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude into the file the moment you pressed the shutter — and those numbers are not vague. One degree of latitude is about 111 km, so four decimal places already resolve to roughly 11 metres: one building on a street. Pasting the pair into any map reverse-geocodes it to a postal address in seconds, free, with no skill involved.
- A photo taken indoors at home carries your home address.
DateTimeOriginalsits a few bytes away in the same block, so each geotag is a place and a time.- A handful of them describes a routine — the school run, the gym, the week the house is empty.
That is the check worth running before a photo leaves your hands: open it here, see whether the GPS block is populated, and decide with the facts in front of you. If it is, strip the metadata before you send — the viewer above has a Strip Metadata & Download button that hands back a clean copy. Our guide to GPS data in photos covers how precise a geotag really is and which apps strip it for you; how to find the location a photo was taken walks the same chain from the other direction.
Location is the urgent reason. Three more bring people here daily:
- To confirm a platform really stripped it. Download your own photo back from the site you posted it to, open it in the viewer, and read what survived — which sites strip EXIF is the summary, but your own file is the proof.
- To date or verify a photo.
DateTimeOriginalsays when the shutter fired and theSoftwaretag often names the editor that touched it afterwards — the two fields behind working out when a photo was taken. - To read the settings behind a shot.Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length and lens, exactly as the camera recorded them — the fastest way to learn from a frame you liked, yours or someone else's.
What Is EXIF Data?
EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. It is a metadata standard built into nearly every modern camera and smartphone. The instant you press the shutter, the device writes dozens of structured fields into the image file alongside the pixel data. That metadata travels with the photo — through email, cloud storage, AirDrop, and any platform that doesn't actively strip it — and any EXIF viewer can read it back out.
The fields fall into a handful of common groups, each covered in our guide to what EXIF data is. Here are the tags you'll see most often when you open a photo in this viewer:
- Make — the camera manufacturer (e.g., Apple, Canon, Sony).
- Model — the specific camera or phone model (e.g., iPhone 15 Pro, Canon EOS R5).
- DateTimeOriginal — the exact second the shutter fired, often including timezone.
- ExposureTime — shutter speed, written as a fraction like 1/125.
- FNumber — the aperture, written as an f-stop like f/1.8.
- ISOSpeedRatings — the sensor sensitivity used for the exposure.
- FocalLength — the focal length the lens was set to, in millimeters.
- GPSLatitude / GPSLongitude — the exact location where the photo was taken, often accurate to a few meters.
- Software — the application that last wrote the file (Lightroom, Photoshop, Snapseed, an AI tool).
- Orientation — the original rotation flag set by the camera.
Those are the ten you will meet on almost any photo. A typical phone file carries dozens more — EXIF data explained is the full glossary, field by field.
What You Can Learn From a Photo's EXIF
EXIF is more than a list of camera settings — it's a small forensic record of how a photo came to exist. With a good EXIF viewer — or by following our how to read EXIF data guide for iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows — you can answer questions a photo alone can't:
- The exact camera settings.Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length, flash status, white balance, and metering mode. Photographers use these to learn from other people's work; investigators use them to verify how a shot was actually taken.
- When and where the photo was taken.
DateTimeOriginaland the GPS tags pin a photo to a moment and a place — often the most privacy-sensitive thing in the entire file. - Whether the photo was edited. The
Softwaretag frequently reveals Lightroom, Photoshop, mobile filter apps, or AI generators like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL·E. If a photo claims to be untouched but the Software field says "Adobe Photoshop", that's a strong tell. - The original orientation. The Orientation tag records whether the photo was shot portrait, landscape, or upside down — useful when a viewer is showing the image rotated and you want to know which way the camera was actually held.
- The device identity. Make, Model, and (on some cameras) a unique serial number. Multiple photos with the same serial number can be linked to the same physical device.
Online vs. Desktop EXIF Viewers
"Online or installed" is the wrong first question. The one that decides it is where your file ends up— and that splits online viewers in two. Some upload the photo to a server and parse it there. Some parse it in the browser tab and send nothing. Both look identical from the outside, so check rather than assume: open your browser's network tab before you pick a file, then watch whether an upload request fires. On this page none does.
| Viewer | Install? | Where the file goes | How deep it reads | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This viewer (browser-side) | None | Nowhere — parsed by JavaScript in the tab | Full EXIF, IPTC, XMP and GPS; MakerNote not decoded | Checking a photo now, on whatever device you are holding. |
| Upload-based online viewers | None | Onto someone else's server; retention is their policy | Varies — some run ExifTool server-side and decode more | Little that a local parser cannot do. You hand over the file to get depth ExifTool gives you at home for free. |
| Windows: Properties > Details | Built in | Stays on the machine | A curated subset — camera, settings, GPS; no MakerNote, no raw tag names | A glance without leaving File Explorer. |
| macOS: Preview > Show Inspector | Built in | Stays on the machine | EXIF and GPS tabs — more than Windows shows, still a subset | The same glance on a Mac, with a map for the coordinates. |
| ExifTool | Install, command line | Stays on the machine | Everything, MakerNote included; also writes tags | Depth, whole folders at a time, and formats browsers refuse — Canon CR3 among them. |
Where an online viewer wins
- Nothing to install, nothing to update, no admin rights — it works on a locked-down work laptop.
- Identical on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux, which matters because the photo is usually on a phone.
- Faster than the OS route for one file: drop it in, read it, close the tab.
- When it parses locally, the file never leaves the device — so it is safe for photos you would not hand to a stranger.
Where a desktop tool wins
- MakerNote depth — Canon Picture Style, Nikon shutter count, the manufacturer fields no browser viewer decodes.
- Every raw format, including the newer ones a browser parser will not open.
- Writing, not just reading: fixing a wrong date, stamping a copyright, clearing one tag and keeping the rest.
- Scripting across a folder — thousands of files, one command, output as CSV.
In practice the split is simple. Reading a photo, once, wherever you are: a browser viewer is faster and gives up nothing that matters. Auditing an archive, decoding MakerNote, or changing what is written in the file: install ExifTool. The how to read EXIF data guide walks both routes step by step, on every platform.
Check a photo right now
Drop in one file or a hundred, read every tag, and take back a stripped copy if you want one. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, no account.
Open the EXIF ViewerPrivacy: Nothing Leaves Your Browser
This EXIF viewer is built entirely in client-side JavaScript. When you select or drop a file, the parser reads the EXIF block locally — your image is never uploaded to a server, never written to a database, and never visible to us or anyone else. You can run it with the network disconnected and it still works. If a photo contains GPS coordinates or other sensitive tags, you can decide on your own machine whether to share it, after seeing exactly what it contains. That matters most right before an upload: a platform that strips metadata from the public copy still receives your original first — check what metadata Facebook stores or what EXIF data Twitter/X stores to see what that means in practice. For the bigger picture on what a photo can give away and how to share safely, read our photo privacy guide.
Supported File Types
The viewer parses any image format that carries an EXIF block, including:
- JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg) — the universal camera format.
- HEIC / HEIF(.heic) — Apple's default since iPhone 7.
- PNG (.png) — limited EXIF support via eXIf chunks.
- WebP(.webp) — Google's format, EXIF in RIFF chunks.
- TIFF (.tif, .tiff) — full EXIF support.
- RAW (.cr2, .nef, .arw, .dng, etc.) — the richest metadata, including proprietary maker notes.
- AVIF (.avif) — modern HEIF-based format with EXIF support.
Related Guides
EXIF Data Explained
The full tag glossary behind the fields this viewer shows you, plus how the metadata gets written and who strips it.
What Is EXIF Data?
Reference for every common EXIF field, file format support, and how the metadata gets written in the first place.
How to Read EXIF Data
Step-by-step instructions for reading EXIF on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, and the web.
Remove Photo Metadata
Strip EXIF data after viewing it — including GPS coordinates — before sharing photos online.
How to Find the Location a Photo Was Taken
Read a photo's GPS coordinates, plot them on a map, and know what it means when there are none.
GPS Data in Photos
How location coordinates get embedded, what they reveal, and how to turn off geotagging.
Photo Privacy Guide
What your photos reveal about you and how to share them without giving away your location or device.
View EXIF Data on Android
What Google Photos, your gallery, and the Files app show you — and what only a full viewer will.
View EXIF Data on iPhone
The Photos app, the Files app, and third-party apps compared — and why Photos hides the coordinates.
Lens EXIF Data
The tags that record lens model, focal length, and aperture range — and why stabilization is not among them.
Canon Camera Metadata
Why a CR2 opens here and a CR3 does not, what Canon hides in its MakerNote, and the tools that read it.
Nikon Camera Metadata
Why a NEF opens here but Picture Control, Active D-Lighting, and the shutter count do not.
Add Copyright to Photo EXIF
Fill the Artist and Copyright fields, stamp a whole archive at once, and check the notice survived your export.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best EXIF viewer?
It depends on the job, and the honest answer splits three ways. For a quick, private check on any device — including the phone the photo is sitting on — a browser viewer that parses the file locally is the best pick: nothing to install, nothing uploaded, and it reads EXIF, IPTC, XMP and GPS. For manufacturer MakerNote fields, raw formats a browser will not open, batch work across a folder, or writing tags rather than reading them, ExifTool is the deepest tool there is and it is free. The viewers built into Windows and macOS are convenient but show a curated subset and hide the raw tag names. The comparison above sets the five side by side.
What is EXIF data?
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is metadata embedded in photos by cameras and phones. It records the device, lens, and exposure settings, the date and time the photo was taken, and often GPS coordinates. Any EXIF viewer can read it back out of the file.
Is this EXIF viewer free?
Yes. The viewer is free, has no sign-up, no watermark, no usage limit, and no paid tier. It's a static web page funded by a small amount of unobtrusive advertising — the tool itself is completely free to use.
Does this viewer upload my photo anywhere?
No. The EXIF parser runs entirely in your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your image file never leaves your device. You can confirm by opening your browser's network tab — there are no upload requests when you load a photo. You can even disconnect from the internet and the viewer still works.
What file types are supported?
JPEG, HEIC/HEIF, PNG, WebP, TIFF, AVIF, and most RAW formats (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, ORF, RAF, RW2, and others). If a file contains an EXIF block, this viewer will read it.
Can I see GPS coordinates from a photo?
Yes — if the photo has GPS data, the viewer surfaces the latitude and longitude and shows the approximate location. Photos taken on a phone with location services enabled for the camera will almost always include GPS coordinates accurate to within a few meters. Photos from cameras without GPS chips won't have those tags.
How do I remove EXIF data after viewing?
Click "Strip Metadata & Download" on the viewer above to save a clean copy of your image with all EXIF data removed. For platform-specific instructions on iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows, see the remove metadata guide.