What Metadata Does a Photo Contain? Every Field, Explained

A photo straight from a phone or camera typically contains metadata about where it was taken (GPS coordinates), which device took it (make, model, sometimes serial number), when it was taken (date, time and time zone), how it was taken (exposure settings), which software touched it, a small embedded preview image, and a manufacturer-specific block called maker notes. This page is a field-by-field reference, grouped by how much each field can reveal about you.

Tag names below are the ones used by ExifTool and most viewers. Not every photo has every field: it depends on the device, its settings and the apps the file has passed through. Sensitivity ratings are a practical guide, not a formal classification.

Location fields (high sensitivity)

These are written by the camera when it has a location fix and permission to use it. They are the fields most likely to cause real harm, because a photo taken at home points to your home.

How precise is it? One hundred-thousandth of a degree of latitude is about 1.1 meters, and phones routinely store coordinates with more decimals than that. With a good satellite signal outdoors, phone positions are typically accurate to a few meters, enough to identify a single house.

Device and owner identity (high sensitivity)

These fields identify the hardware and, sometimes, the person who owns it.

A make and model alone narrow you down only to millions of owners. A serial number is different: it is the same in every photo from that camera, so it can link an anonymous account to photos you have published under your name. Serial numbers are much more common on dedicated cameras than on phones, and they can also hide in maker notes; see camera serial numbers in photos.

Date and time fields (medium sensitivity)

A single timestamp says little. Several, combined with locations or with what is in the picture, reveal routines: when you leave for work, when a house is empty, when a child is at a particular place. The time-zone offset can also reveal roughly where in the world you were, even without GPS.

Note that the "created" and "modified" dates your computer shows are file-system dates. They are not stored inside the image and do not travel with it when you upload it; the embedded EXIF dates do.

Camera settings (low sensitivity)

These describe how the image was exposed and are the reason photographers love EXIF:

• ExposureTime (shutter speed), FNumber (aperture), ISO
• FocalLength, FocalLengthIn35mmFormat, DigitalZoomRatio
• Flash, WhiteBalance, MeteringMode, ExposureProgram, ExposureCompensation
• SceneCaptureType, BrightnessValue, SubjectArea

On their own they reveal little personal information. They can hint at conditions (a long exposure and high ISO suggest a dark scene), and the combination of model, lens and typical settings can help someone recognize photos from the same photographer, but they are rarely a privacy risk by themselves.

Software and editing history (medium sensitivity)

Editing history is easy to overlook. It can show that an image was edited, in which program and when, and document IDs can connect several exported images to one original. Content Credentials are a newer, deliberate provenance system with real trade-offs, explained in AI images and C2PA metadata.

Embedded thumbnails, previews and maker notes (high, often forgotten)

Thumbnails. Most JPEGs from cameras contain a small preview image in the EXIF block (the IFD1 ThumbnailImage), and many cameras add a larger PreviewImage as well. If an editing program changes the main image but does not regenerate the preview, the preview can show the original: before cropping, before blurring a face, before removing a document from the frame. There have been publicly reported cases of cropped photos whose thumbnails still showed the uncropped version.

Maker notes. The MakerNote tag holds a proprietary block defined by each manufacturer. Its contents vary widely: focus points, lens data, internal temperatures and, on some cameras, a shutter count or an internal serial number. Because the format is undocumented and brand-specific, basic viewers do not decode it, so you often cannot see what it contains without ExifTool.

Both are good reasons to remove the whole EXIF block rather than individual fields.

How the mix differs between phones, cameras and edited files

Which of these fields you will actually find depends on where the file came from:

• Phone photos almost always have make, model, lens, capture settings and precise dates with a time-zone offset. They include GPS whenever the camera app has location permission, which is often the default after setup. Phones generally do not write a body serial number, and iPhones save HEIC files by default unless set to "Most Compatible".
• Dedicated cameras often have no GPS unless paired with a phone app or fitted with a GPS accessory, but they are the main source of serial numbers, owner names, copyright lines set in the menu, and large maker-note blocks.
• Edited and exported files pick up Software, a newer ModifyDate and, from many desktop editors, an XMP block with document IDs and history. Whether the original GPS survives depends on the export settings.
• Screenshots have no camera settings or GPS, but usually a date and some device or software information. See whether screenshots have metadata.
• Images downloaded from major social networks are usually stripped down to size and color information, because the platform re-encodes them.

Technical fields worth keeping

A few items describe how to display the image and reveal nothing about you:

• ICC color profile. Describes the color space, such as sRGB or Display P3. Removing it can make colors look dull or shifted, especially for wide-gamut phone photos. See why to keep the ICC color profile.
• Orientation. Tells viewers to rotate the image; removing it carelessly makes photos appear sideways. See EXIF orientation explained.
• Dimensions and color information: PixelXDimension, PixelYDimension, ColorSpace, XResolution, YCbCrPositioning. Image size is also visible from the pixels themselves.

This is why a good metadata remover keeps the color profile and orientation while deleting everything else.

What to do next

1. Open one of your own photos and see which of these fields it contains; how to view EXIF data shows how on every system. For the full list, including XMP and maker notes, run exiftool -a -G1 -s photo.jpg.
2. Look specifically for GPS tags in both EXIF and XMP, serial numbers, names, and a thumbnail.
3. Before sharing original files, remove everything except the color profile and orientation. Our free metadata remover does this for JPEG, PNG and WebP without re-encoding the image, and shows a report of what it found and removed.
4. Remember what no tool can remove: anything visible in the picture itself, such as street signs, house numbers, reflections, faces or documents.