What photo metadata is

Metadata: information inside the file

An image contains more than pixels. Depending on the format, device and software that created it, the file may include additional information blocks. In photography people often refer to EXIF, but XMP, IPTC, color profiles and other segments also exist.

GPS, camera and dates

Some cameras and phones may store manufacturer, model, date, exposure settings and GPS coordinates. Not every image contains these fields, and many platforms remove some information when they reprocess a photo.

Why review before sharing

If an image keeps GPS coordinates or author data that you do not want to publish, reviewing it before sharing can prevent unnecessary exposure. The current viewer inspects JPEG/JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, HEIC/HEIF, AVIF, JPEG XL and GIF with a specialized reader. Verified cleaning rebuilds static JPEG/JPG, PNG and WebP files from their pixels and checks the generated copy again.