How to View EXIF Data on iPhone

This is the fastest look at a photo's core metadata, and it is built into every iPhone running a current version of iOS.

1. Open the Photos app and tap the photo you want to inspect.
2. Tap the ⓘ info button below the image, or swipe up on the photo itself. Both open the same panel.
3. Read the panel. The top line is the day and time the shutter fired. Below that sits a camera row — your iPhone model and which lens fired — and beneath it the shot settings: the f/ number, the shutter speed, ISO, and the focal length in millimetres. The file size, image dimensions, and file type sit alongside them.
4. If the photo carries GPS coordinates, a map appears at the bottom of the panel with a pin and a place name. Tap it to open the location full-screen.

Two fields in this panel are editable, which is useful when a photo was captured with the wrong clock or no location. Tap Adjust beside the date and time to correct the timestamp, and tap Adjust beside the location — or Add a Location if there is none — to set coordinates. Both changes are written back to the photo in your library.

On Android, the Files app is a dead end for metadata. On iPhone it is the opposite: Get Info in Files surfaces considerably more EXIF than the Photos app does, including the raw GPS coordinates. It is the best no-install option on the phone, and almost nobody knows it is there.

1. If the photo lives in your photo library, first export a copy: open it in Photos, tap Share, and choose Save to Files. Pick a folder and tap Save. (A photo already in Files — a download, or an AirDrop — needs no export.)
2. Open the Files app and navigate to that folder.
3. Press and hold the image, then choose Get Info from the menu.
4. Tap Show More next to the Information heading to expand the full metadata list.

Note the export step's side effect. Save to Files writes a copy, and the copy's created and modified dates are when you saved it — not when the photo was taken. The capture time lives in the EXIF rows below, not in the filesystem dates at the top of the sheet. The same trap catches people reading dates off photos received by message.

Files still stops short of everything. It lists the tags it recognises and skips Apple's maker-note block, which can run to hundreds of undocumented values. For an exhaustive dump, use a viewer that parses the file directly.

If you inspect photos often, an installed app puts EXIF one tap away from the Photos share sheet, works offline, and can edit or erase tags in bulk — something no built-in iOS screen will do.

• Exif Metadata (App Store). Views, edits, and removes metadata including GPS location. Free to install, with premium capabilities behind an in-app purchase.
• EXIF Viewer by Fluntro (App Store). Reads the detailed tag list — ISO, shutter speed, focal length, camera and lens model — plots photos on a map, and can bulk-edit dates and locations or strip metadata entirely. Sold as a one-time purchase rather than a subscription. A free EXIF Viewer LITE build is also published if you want to try the reading side first.
• Apple Shortcuts (free, built in). Not a viewer, but worth knowing: a shortcut can pull EXIF from a photo and show or log the fields you care about, and it lives in the share sheet.

You tapped the info button and the panel is nearly empty. That is usually one of five things, and none of them is a broken viewer.

• It came through a messaging app.WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Signal re-encode images on upload and the EXIF does not survive the trip. The copy on your phone never had the original's metadata. iMessage and AirDrop, by contrast, pass EXIF through untouched.
• It was downloaded from the web. Most platforms strip metadata when they process an upload, so what you download is already clean.
• It is a screenshot.A screenshot is a new image created by the system. It has dimensions and a creation date and essentially nothing else — certainly not the original photo's camera data or GPS.
• Location Services were off for the Camera. No GPS tags are written if the Camera app lacked location access. Everything else — iPhone model, lens, exposure — will still be there. If the coordinates are present but wrong, that is a different problem with its own causes.
• Someone stripped it deliberately. Which, if you are about to share the photo, is what you should do too.

Location present but pointing at the wrong city? Our guide to iPhone photos showing the wrong location covers Precise Location, GPS lock, and time-zone drift. Ready to delete the metadata instead of read it? See removing EXIF data from iPhone photos.