Free·No account needed·Ready in seconds·No compression
Photo metadata
EXIF & Photo Metadata Viewer
Drop a photo and this EXIF viewer shows you everything hidden inside it: the camera and lens, the exposure settings, the date it was taken, the GPS location, edit history, and any markers that flag it as AI generated. It all reads in your browser, so your photo never leaves your device.
As a photo metadata viewer it goes past the basics. Fields are grouped so the important ones stand out, and an Everything else section lists every remaining tag with a search box, so you can view EXIF data online in full without digging through a wall of raw output. GPS coordinates are decoded to decimal degrees with a map link, and dates, software and copyright are pulled out where your camera or editing app stored them.
The AI check reads the things that actually mark an image: Content Credentials manifests, the IPTC source-type flag, known generator names, and the embedded prompts that Stable Diffusion tools like AUTOMATIC1111, ComfyUI and NovelAI leave behind, with one-click copy. When you want to act on what you find, imgico can remove metadata from a photo without re-encoding it, or answer where a photo was taken from its GPS tags.
Reading metadata locally matters because the file can hold private details, like the exact coordinates of your home. Some metadata tools upload the photo to look at it and keep a copy on their server for a day or more; imgico never sends the file anywhere, so there is nothing sitting on a server to worry about. imgico keeps the whole thing on your machine and, for cleaning, changes only the metadata bytes so your image stays exactly as it was. Want to fix a wrong date or add a GPS point instead of just viewing it? Try the EXIF editor.
What each EXIF field actually means
Open a photo and you get a wall of tags. Most people only ever care about a handful of them, and here is what those handful tell you. The names below are the raw EXIF tag names, which is what you'll see in the Everything else list.
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Make / Model | The camera or phone that took the shot, like Apple iPhone 15 Pro or NIKON Z6. Often the single most identifying tag in the file. |
| LensModel | The lens used, when the body reports it. |
| FNumber | The aperture, written as an f-stop like f/1.8. Lower means a wider opening and more background blur. |
| ExposureTime | The shutter speed, like 1/250 s. Long values mean a slow shutter, which is where motion blur and camera shake come from. |
| ISOSpeedRatings | The sensor's light sensitivity. High ISO (say 6400+) usually means a dark scene and more grain. |
| FocalLength | The zoom, in millimetres. 24mm is wide, 200mm is well into telephoto. |
| DateTimeOriginal | When the shutter fired, per the camera's clock. Not the same as the file's modified date, which changes every time the photo is edited or re-saved. |
| GPSLatitude / GPSLongitude | Where it was taken, if location was on. This is the tag people most want to read, and most want to strip before sharing. |
| Orientation | How the camera was held, so viewers rotate the image the right way up instead of storing it rotated. |
| Software | What last wrote the file. A phone model, Lightroom, Photoshop, or the name of an AI generator, which is a useful tell. |
Reading AI generation metadata
When an image is made by Stable Diffusion, the tools usually save the recipe right inside the file, and the AI check view pulls it out. Where it lives depends on the tool. AUTOMATIC1111 and its forks write a single parameters text chunk into a PNG holding the positive prompt, the negative prompt, and a settings line with the seed, sampler, CFG scale, steps and model hash. Export the same image as JPEG or WebP and that string moves into an EXIF field instead, so the viewer checks both places.
ComfyUI does it differently. It embeds the entire node graph as JSON, under workflow and prompt keys, so you get the full pipeline rather than one flat line. NovelAI stashes its data in the Comment and Software fields. On top of the generator-specific stuff, the viewer looks for the format-agnostic markers: a Content Credentials (C2PA) manifest, which some tools and cameras now sign into the file, and the IPTC DigitalSourceType flag that labels an image as AI-created. Find any of these and you've got strong evidence. The reverse doesn't hold, though: a blank result never proves a human made it, because any of these can be stripped in seconds, on this very site.
Finding a generator marker is strong evidence an image is AI. Not finding one proves nothing, because any of these tags can be stripped in a click. Absence of metadata is not proof of a human.
EXIF, XMP and IPTC: three kinds of metadata in one file
People say EXIF as a catch-all, but a photo usually carries three separate metadata blocks and they come from different places. Knowing which is which explains why removing one doesn't remove the others.
EXIF
Written by the camera at capture. Technical facts about the shot: exposure, lens, timestamp, GPS. If a tag describes the moment the photo was taken, it's almost always EXIF.
XMP
Adobe's format, added later by editing software. Ratings, keywords, crop and develop settings from Lightroom, edit history. It's XML, and it can quietly carry a copy of GPS and other fields too.
IPTC
The press and stock-photo standard. Caption, photographer credit, copyright, usage terms. If an agency or newsroom touched the file, the rights info lives here.
The viewer reads all three and groups them, and the cleaner strips all three at once, so you don't clear the EXIF and leave your coordinates sitting in an XMP packet nobody looked at.
Frequently asked questions
What is EXIF data?
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of information your camera or phone writes inside a photo when it takes it. It records things like the camera make and model, lens, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, the date and time, and often the GPS location. Photos also carry related metadata such as XMP (edit history from apps like Lightroom) and IPTC (captions and copyright). This EXIF viewer reads all of it and groups it so you can actually make sense of it.
Are my photos uploaded when I view the metadata?
No. The whole tool runs in your browser. Your photo is read on your own device with JavaScript, and no image bytes are ever sent to imgico or anywhere else. You can open the tool, then go offline, and it still works. That is the point of reading metadata locally: the file often contains private information like your home coordinates, so it should never have to leave your computer to be inspected.
Can I share a photo's metadata with someone?
Yes, if you choose to. By default nothing leaves your device, because the whole report is read in your browser. When you do want a link to send, use Share metadata. It asks you to confirm once, then uploads your original photo, exact bytes and never re-encoded, to a permanent page at imgico.com/m that re-reads the full report from the file. Public links open for anyone who has the address; private links open only for you. You can delete a shared report whenever you like. Nothing is shared until you click Share and confirm.
Does removing metadata reduce image quality?
Not here. Many EXIF removers redraw the photo onto a canvas and re-save it, which re-compresses the image and loses quality. imgico strips the metadata out at the byte level and leaves the picture data untouched, so the result is pixel for pixel identical to the original. If you want to clean a file, open the Remove metadata from photos tool and download the cleaned copy.
Can you tell where a photo was taken?
If the photo still holds GPS coordinates, yes: the Location view turns them into decimal degrees and gives you a map link. Many photos have no GPS, because location was off or because a social network stripped it on upload. In that case the tool tells you honestly that there is no location stored, rather than guessing a place from what the image shows.
How do I check if an image is AI generated?
Open a photo and look at the AI check view. imgico reads the signals that generators and cameras actually write into a file: Content Credentials (C2PA) manifests, the IPTC DigitalSourceType marker, generator names in the Software field, and the prompt and settings that tools like AUTOMATIC1111, ComfyUI and NovelAI embed. Finding one of these is strong evidence an image is AI generated. Finding none does not prove a human made it, since metadata can be removed, but the tool shows you exactly what is and is not there.
Which file formats can it read?
JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, GIF and AVIF are all read for metadata. Cleaning a copy without re-encoding is supported for JPEG, PNG and WebP; for formats that cannot be stripped byte for byte in a browser, the tool shows the data as view only instead of quietly re-saving and degrading your image.
What does the Everything else section show?
Common fields are grouped under Camera, Date and time, and Software and edits. Everything else is the full raw list of every remaining tag found in the file, with a search box so you can jump to a specific field. Nothing is hidden or summarised away, so power users get the complete picture.