Image Metadata Viewer

See what your camera, phone and editing software wrote into a photo — without changing the file.

Runs on your deviceImagesWorkingNo account needed

What this tool does

Image Metadata Viewer is an EXIF viewer that does not stop at EXIF. It parses the metadata blocks inside a picture and lays the readable tags out as a table of group, tag and value: EXIF, IPTC, XMP, the ICC profile, GPS, PNG and PNG text chunks, RIFF fields, GIF header fields, Photoshop records and the JFIF block that every JPEG carries each arrive as their own group. A phone photo usually yields several dozen rows — make and model, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, the capture date, the orientation flag, editing history and, when the camera was allowed to record it, coordinates. Group headings come straight from the reader, so a few arrive unpolished; the JFIF block is labelled in lower case as jfif.

Nothing is sent anywhere. The file is read into memory by JavaScript in this tab and the extracted tags never leave the page — which is the property that matters when the thing you are inspecting is a photograph you have not decided to publish yet. The reader is an ordinary script served from this site rather than from a third party, although it is fetched the first time you press the button rather than when the page loads. The single setting, Include the basic file facts, governs one group and one group only: the File group, which on a JPEG holds bits per sample, pixel dimensions, colour components and chroma subsampling, and on every other format holds nothing but the detected file type.

It reads and reports; it changes nothing. There is no cleaned copy at the end — the outputs are a CSV and a JSON listing of the tags, saved beside the original name with -metadata added. Four things are left out of the table on purpose, because they are binary blocks rather than readable values: the raw maker note, the embedded thumbnail image, the PrintIM record and the full-image tag, which is also why there is no thumbnail preview on the page. Long values are cut off at 300 characters and any list of more than 24 values collapses to a count, so a large XMP packet or an ICC profile is summarised rather than dumped in full. One image goes through at a time; there is no batch mode.

Three honest caveats about what the rows mean. Metadata is self-reported: every field here was written by a device or a program, and any of it can be edited afterwards, so a capture date or a camera model read from a file is a claim that file makes rather than proof of anything. An empty result is not the same as a clean file — it means no metadata was found in the containers this reader understands, the ordinary outcome for a screenshot, for an image re-exported by an editor, or for a photo that has already been through a platform that strips metadata on upload, and BMP is a standing special case because the reader cannot parse that format at all. And the GPS warning is blunt by construction: it fires on any tag whose name begins with GPS, so a picture carrying only an empty GPS block — which some cameras write even with location switched off — is announced as though it named a place. Read the GPS group itself before believing the headline.

How to use it

  1. Choose one photo. One image goes through per run. The format is worked out from the file's own signature bytes rather than from the extension, and reported back as JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, AVIF, HEIC, BMP or TIFF.
  2. Decide about the basic file facts. Include the basic file facts is on by default and controls the File group alone. On a JPEG that group carries the pixel dimensions, bits per sample, colour components and subsampling; on a PNG, GIF or WebP it carries only the file type, and the header numbers stay in that format's own group whichever way the box is set.
  3. Read the table and the summary. Rows arrive grouped, and the summary counts how many tags were found across how many groups. If any GPS tag is present the summary says so and points at Remove GPS Metadata — look at the GPS group to see whether real coordinates sit behind that warning.
  4. Take the list away. The same rows download as a CSV and as a JSON file, each named after the original with -metadata appended — the usable form when you want to compare two photos or keep a record of what one contained.

Processing & privacy

Runs on your device. Your file is processed directly in this browser.

Common use cases

Checking a photo before you post it publicly

The result panel calls out GPS on a line of its own, so the question of whether the file records where it was taken gets answered before a forum or a marketplace serves it to everyone.

Confirming that a scrub actually worked

Put the output of Remove EXIF or Remove GPS Metadata back through and read the table. Verifying the file rather than trusting a summary is worth doing once per camera and format.

Recovering the shot data behind a picture

Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length and lens are all recorded in the EXIF, which is how you reproduce a photograph you took months ago and cannot remember setting up.

Checking the credit on a supplied image

Agencies and photographers write creator, copyright and caption fields into the IPTC and XMP blocks. Reading them tells you who a file belongs to before it goes into a layout.

Working out why an image displays sideways

The Orientation tag states how a viewer is meant to rotate the picture. A photo that looks wrong in one program and right in another usually has that tag, and one of the two is ignoring it.

Questions

Does the picture leave my browser?
No. It is read in this tab and the tags are extracted there, so the image is neither transmitted nor stored. The reader script itself is fetched from this site over the network, so the first run after loading the page does need a connection; runs after that reuse the copy already in memory.
Does it change my photo in any way?
No. This tool only reads. The original is untouched and the downloads are a CSV and a JSON list of tags — to strip metadata rather than inspect it, use Remove EXIF or Remove GPS Metadata instead.
It found no metadata. Is something wrong?
Usually not. Screenshots, images re-exported by editors, and anything that has been through a service which strips metadata on upload genuinely carry none. Strictly it means none was found in the containers this reader understands, and BMP files always land here because the reader has no BMP support at all.
Can I trust the date and the camera model it shows?
Treat them as what the file claims rather than as evidence. Every EXIF, IPTC and XMP field is written by software, and any of it can be rewritten afterwards without leaving a mark that shows up here.
Why is the maker note or the embedded thumbnail not listed?
Both are skipped on purpose, along with the PrintIM record and the full-image tag, because they are binary blocks rather than readable text. The maker note also tends to hold a camera serial number in a manufacturer-specific encoding.
Why does a PNG show some of its rows twice?
The reader hands the PNG header back under two names and both land beneath the same PNG heading, so width, height, bit depth and colour type are each listed twice and the tag count is inflated to match. That is a display fault in this tool rather than anything wrong with your file.
The summary warns about GPS but I see no coordinates. Why?
The warning fires on any tag whose name starts with GPS, including the pointer to an empty GPS block that some cameras write with location switched off. When the GPS group holds no latitude or longitude, no position is stored in the file.
Can I inspect several photos at once?
Not in one run. The tool takes a single file and lists its tags, so run each photo separately, or download the CSV from each and compare them in a spreadsheet.
Does it plot the GPS coordinates on a map?
No. Latitude, longitude and altitude appear as plain values in the GPS group and the summary states that location is present. Nothing about the file is looked up against an outside service.

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