To view EXIF data, open the photo's information panel: swipe up or tap the info button in the Photos app on iPhone, swipe up in Google Photos on Android, choose Properties > Details in Windows File Explorer, or use Tools > Show Inspector in Preview on a Mac. These built-in viewers show the camera, settings, date and location. For every field, including XMP and maker notes, use the free ExifTool on any computer.

What built-in viewers show, and what they miss

Before you start, it helps to know the limits. Phone and desktop viewers display a friendly selection of EXIF fields: device model, lens, exposure settings, date, file size and, if present, a location on a map. They usually do not show:

  • XMP data, such as editing history, document IDs or a second copy of GPS coordinates.
  • Maker notes, the manufacturer-specific block that can contain serial numbers.
  • The embedded thumbnail, which may not match the main image after editing.
  • Which block a value came from, which matters when you want to remove it.

So a built-in viewer is good for a quick check ("does this photo have a location?") but not proof that a file is clean. For a full list of fields and what each one reveals, see what metadata a photo contains.

How to view EXIF data on iPhone

  1. Open the Photos app and open a photo.
  2. Swipe up on the photo, or tap the info button (the "i" icon) below it.
  3. Read the panel: it shows the date and time, the device and lens, resolution, file size and format (HEIF or JPEG), the exposure settings, and a map if the photo has a location.
  4. Tap the map to open the location in Maps, or tap Adjust to change or remove the date or location.

This view has been available since iOS 15; Apple describes it in See photo and video information on iPhone. Labels can differ slightly between iOS versions.

Keep in mind that the Photos app shows what is in your library. When you share a photo with Location turned off in the share sheet's Options, the copy you send differs from what you see here. To inspect an actual file, for example one saved in the Files app, you need a viewer that opens files directly.

How to view EXIF data on Android

Google Photos (installed on most Android phones):

  1. Open the photo.
  2. Swipe up, or tap the three-dot More menu at the top right.
  3. The details panel shows the date and time, the file name, size and resolution, the camera model with aperture, shutter speed, focal length and ISO, and a map if a location is stored.

Samsung Gallery: open the photo and swipe up (or tap the details or "i" option, depending on your One UI version) to see the same kind of information, including a map for geotagged photos.

Other manufacturers' gallery apps have a similar "Details" or "Info" option, usually under the three-dot menu. Note that Google Photos can show an estimated location that it inferred itself and that is not stored in the file. The labels and layout change between app versions, so look for "Details" or "Info" if the steps above do not match exactly.

How to view EXIF data on Windows

File Explorer shows more fields than most phone apps:

  1. Right-click the photo and choose Properties.
  2. Open the Details tab.
  3. Scroll through the sections: Origin (date taken, program name, authors, copyright), Camera (maker, model, f-stop, exposure time, ISO, focal length), Advanced photo (lens, flash, white balance, EXIF version), GPS (latitude, longitude, altitude, present only if the photo has a location) and File.

The Windows Photos app also has an information pane: open the photo and use the info button (labeled File info in some versions) in the top toolbar or the "..." menu. Depending on the app version it may show less than File Explorer, so use the Details tab when you need specific fields.

Windows reads EXIF and some XMP and IPTC fields, but it shows them under its own labels and does not tell you where each value is stored.

How to view EXIF data on a Mac

Preview gives the most detail of the built-in tools:

  1. Open the photo in Preview.
  2. Choose Tools > Show Inspector (or press Command-I).
  3. Select the More Info tab (the "i" icon).
  4. Browse the sub-tabs: General, Exif, TIFF, and, when present, GPS, IPTC or a tab named after the camera manufacturer. The GPS tab includes a map and a Remove Location Info button.

Photos app: select a photo and press Command-I (or choose Window > Info) to see the camera, lens, settings, file size and a location map.

Finder: select the file, choose File > Get Info, and expand More Info to see dimensions, device make and model, exposure settings and color profile.

Terminal: mdls photo.jpg prints the metadata Spotlight has indexed for a file, including fields such as kMDItemAcquisitionModel and, for geotagged photos, kMDItemLatitude and kMDItemLongitude.

See everything with ExifTool (Windows, Mac, Linux)

ExifTool is a free, open-source program by Phil Harvey and the reference for reading image metadata. It shows every block: EXIF, XMP, IPTC, ICC, maker notes, PNG text chunks and more.

  • Windows: download the Windows build from exiftool.org and extract it, keeping the exiftool_files folder next to the program. Dragging a photo onto exiftool(-k).exe opens a window listing all its metadata. Rename it to exiftool.exe to use it from the command line.
  • Mac: brew install exiftool, or use the macOS package from the website.
  • Linux: sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl on Debian and Ubuntu; other distributions package it as exiftool or perl-Image-ExifTool.

Useful commands:

# Everything, with duplicates, group names and short tag names
exiftool -a -G1 -s photo.jpg

# Only location tags
exiftool -gps:all photo.jpg

# The position in decimal degrees, ready to paste into a map
exiftool -c "%.6f" -gpsposition photo.jpg

# Only XMP, or only the camera's maker notes
exiftool -xmp:all photo.jpg
exiftool -makernotes:all photo.jpg

# A table of key fields for every photo in a folder
exiftool -T -filename -model -datetimeoriginal -gpsposition ./photos

The -G1 option prints the group in brackets before each tag, for example [GPS], [ExifIFD] or [XMP-exif], so you can see when the same value is stored twice. On Linux, exiv2 -pa photo.jpg and ImageMagick's identify -verbose photo.jpg are alternatives. For the editing and removal side of ExifTool, see the ExifTool cheat sheet.

How to read what you see

GPS coordinates. They appear either as degrees, minutes and seconds (48 deg 51' 30.13" N) or as decimal degrees (48.858369). The N/S and E/W reference matters: south latitudes and west longitudes are negative in decimal form. Paste the decimal pair into any map to see exactly where the photo was taken. GPSImgDirection tells you which way the camera faced.

Dates. DateTimeOriginal is the device's local time when the shutter was pressed. If OffsetTimeOriginal is present (for example +01:00), it tells you the time zone. ModifyDate shows when software last saved the file, which reveals whether it was edited later.

Orientation. A value of 1 (Horizontal, normal) means no rotation; 6 (Rotate 90 CW) and 8 (Rotate 270 CW) are typical for portrait phone photos; 3 means upside down. Viewers rotate the image on screen according to this value.

Missing fields. If a field is absent, the device did not record it or something removed it. "No GPS section" in a basic viewer is a good sign, but only ExifTool or a full report confirms there is no copy in XMP. To learn what each standard is, read what EXIF data is.

Check before you share

Viewing metadata is most useful as a habit just before a photo leaves your hands:

  1. Check the exact file you will send, not the version in your library. Exports, conversions and share options change what is in the file.
  2. Look for the four risky groups: GPS location, serial numbers or owner names, dates you would rather not reveal, and editing history in XMP.
  3. If anything sensitive is there, remove it. For location only, follow how to remove GPS location from photos. To remove everything except the color profile and orientation, use our free metadata remover; it handles JPEG, PNG and WebP and shows a report of what it found and removed.
  4. Verify the cleaned copy with the same viewer. The steps are in how to check that metadata was really removed.
  5. After uploading, download your own post and inspect it, because platforms differ in what they keep and their behavior can change.