What EXIF Stores
- GPS coordinates - Latitude, longitude, and sometimes altitude at the moment of capture
- Camera make and model (e.g. Apple iPhone 15, Canon EOS R5)
- Date and time of capture
- Exposure settings - Shutter speed, aperture (f-number), ISO, focal length
- Flash status - Whether flash fired
- Orientation - How the camera was held, used by viewers to auto-rotate
- Software - Editing application and version if the file was processed
Privacy Implications of GPS Data
If location services are enabled on your smartphone, every photo contains your precise GPS coordinates. Sharing such a photo on social media, in a forum post, or via email can inadvertently reveal your home address, workplace, or travel patterns. Most major social platforms strip EXIF on upload, but email attachments and direct file shares do not. When in doubt, strip EXIF before sharing.
File Size Savings
EXIF data is typically 10–50 KB per file, though some cameras embed large JPEG thumbnail previews in the EXIF block, pushing it to 100 KB or more. Stripping EXIF from a 3 MB smartphone photo saves a modest but measurable percentage of its size- Useful when serving thousands of images on a web page.
When to Keep EXIF
- Portfolio and archival use - Camera settings and date information are valuable for future reference and proof of authorship.
- Print orders - Some print labs use the orientation tag to auto-rotate images correctly.
- Copyright fields - EXIF can embed your name, copyright notice, and contact URL (IPTC fields), which is useful for public portfolio images.
How EXIF Stripping Works
EXIF data lives in the APP1 marker segment at the beginning of the JPEG file. Stripping it is a lossless operation- The image pixel data is untouched. jpg.now's JPEG compressor includes an option to remove all EXIF and IPTC metadata from the output file while leaving the image quality settings you chose intact.