EXIF Metadata Viewer & Stripper

What is EXIF data and is it dangerous to share?

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a metadata standard used by cameras and smartphones to embed technical and contextual information inside image files — primarily JPEG and TIFF. It was designed to help photo management software understand how an image was captured. The privacy problem is that the same mechanism also stores where and when it was captured, on what device, by whom.

Sharing images with intact EXIF data is not always dangerous — but it is often unintentional. Most people do not know what their photos contain, and most platforms do not strip metadata before display. Inspecting before sharing is good practice for anyone publishing photos publicly, whether on social media, blogs, marketplaces, or support systems.

Common metadata hidden in your photos

• GPS location: Latitude, longitude, altitude, and sometimes speed or direction of movement at capture time.
• Device make and model: Camera or smartphone manufacturer and model, identifiable to a specific device generation.
• Capture date and time: The exact timestamp of when the shutter fired, down to the second, including timezone offset where available.
• Lens and camera settings: Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length, flash state, and metering mode.
• Copyright and author: Embedded creator name, artist field, or copyright string set by the device or editing software.
• Editing software history: The software used to edit or process the image, including version numbers in some cases.
• IPTC caption and credit: Editorial metadata including titles, captions, credit lines, and keywords — common in professional photography workflows.
• XMP fields: Adobe-standard extensible metadata often added by Lightroom, Photoshop, or other editing tools.

EXIF, IPTC, and XMP — what is the difference?

These are three distinct metadata standards that often coexist in a single image file. EXIF is primarily technical — it stores camera, lens, capture, and GPS data. IPTC is editorial — it stores copyright, captions, keywords, and credits, and is widely used in professional photography and publishing workflows. XMPis Adobe's extensible metadata standard — it can embed almost anything and is commonly added by Lightroom, Photoshop, and other editing tools. A single JPEG from a professional workflow can contain all three.

Stripping metadata in a build pipeline

If you process images programmatically — for example in a Node.js image pipeline — the sharp library strips metadata by default during any conversion or resize operation:

import sharp from 'sharp';

// Metadata is stripped automatically — no .withMetadata() call
await sharp('input.jpg')
  .resize(1200)
  .webp({ quality: 82 })
  .toFile('output.webp');

// To explicitly preserve metadata (not recommended for public assets):
await sharp('input.jpg')
  .withMetadata()          // <- keeps EXIF, IPTC, XMP, GPS
  .toFile('output-with-meta.jpg');

For teams that cannot use a server-side pipeline — or who are working with assets that must not leave the device — the CodeAva tool provides the same zero-metadata output directly in the browser.