What EXIF is and where it comes from
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a standard from the mid-1990s that lets a camera write a small block of facts into each photo it saves. It was designed for digital cameras and later adopted by every phone. The block travels inside the image file itself, so anyone who receives the original file receives the data too.
A typical phone photo carries 40 to 80 fields. Most are harmless technical notes; a few, such as GPS position and capture time, can say more about you than the picture does. This viewer lets you see exactly what is there before you decide what to do with a file.
What the table shows
The tool reads three groups of tags and lists them in one table:
- Image basics: camera make and model, the software that last saved the file, the orientation flag, resolution values and a modification date.
- Shooting data: exposure time, aperture (FNumber), ISO, focal length and its 35 mm equivalent, lens model, flash, metering and white balance, plus the original capture date.
- GPS: latitude and longitude, often with altitude, direction and a GPS timestamp. When coordinates are present, a button opens the spot on OpenStreetMap.
Coded fields are translated into words, so flash mode reads as "Flash did not fire, auto mode" rather than a number. Some blocks are skipped on purpose: the binary MakerNote with manufacturer-specific data, embedded thumbnails, comment fields, XMP editing history and colour profiles. The copy button exports the table as plain Tag: value lines, which is handy for support tickets or forum questions about camera settings.
Reading the numbers
A few fields are easier to interpret with context:
- ExposureTime is in seconds. 0.008 means 1/125 s, a normal handheld speed; 0.033 is 1/30 s, where hand shake starts to blur photos.
- FNumber is the aperture. Phones usually show a fixed value around 1.5 to 2.4 because their lenses cannot stop down.
- FocalLength on a phone looks tiny, like 6.9 mm, because the sensor is small. FocalLengthIn35mmFormat translates it into the familiar full-frame scale: 24 to 28 mm for a main phone camera, around 13 mm for ultra-wide, 70 mm and up for telephoto.
- ISO above 1600 explains grainy low-light shots.
- Orientation tells viewers how to rotate the stored pixels. A photo that appears sideways in one app but not another usually has a value here that the first app ignores.
- Software reveals editing. A photo whose Software field names a desktop editor has been opened and saved again since it left the camera.
A note on dates
Classic EXIF dates have no time zone: a camera records the local time on its clock, whatever that clock was set to. Newer files may add offset fields such as OffsetTimeOriginal. Treat capture times as approximate unless you know the camera clock was correct, and cross-check with the GPS timestamp, which is recorded in UTC.
When there is little or nothing to show
An empty result is common and tells you something about the file's history:
- Messengers and most social networks remove EXIF from images they deliver. A photo saved from a chat is a fresh copy without it.
- Screenshots and images exported from design tools usually contain only a software tag or nothing at all.
- PNG and WebP files support metadata but rarely carry camera data, since cameras save JPG or HEIC.
- Images that were resized or converted by many online tools lose the block during re-encoding.
The original file straight from the camera or the phone's gallery is the place to look. On iPhones, HEIC files are supported directly.
Privacy considerations
The file is parsed by JavaScript inside your browser and is never uploaded. The only network request the page can make on your behalf is the map link: clicking it opens openstreetmap.org with the coordinates in the address, so only click it if you are comfortable sending them there.
If the table shows a location you would rather not share, clean the file with remove EXIF before sending it. For HEIC photos, converting with HEIC to JPG produces a copy without the original metadata. Check the result here again afterwards; it takes a second and confirms the location is gone.