Guides
Image metadata, explained properly
What is stored inside your photos, who can read it, and how to remove it — written to be useful rather than to fill a page.
Fundamentals
- 8 min readWhat Is Image Metadata?The hidden record travelling inside every photo you take, edit or download — and what it says about you.Open
- 9 min readWhat Is EXIF Data?The camera's note-to-self inside every photo — how it is structured, and which tags actually matter.Open
- 8 min readWhat Is PDF Metadata?Document properties are the obvious part. The revisions left inside the file are the part that leaks.Open
- 9 min readDo PDFs Keep Old Versions of Themselves?Often, yes — and it is why clearing a PDF's document properties can leave the old ones physically intact in the same file.Open
How-to
- 10 min readHow to Remove EXIF Data From PhotosSix ways to strip EXIF, what each one costs you, and how to check that it actually worked.Open
- 7 min readHow to Remove GPS Location Data From PhotosStrip the coordinates from photos you already have, and stop new ones being tagged in the first place.Open
- 7 min readHow to Check Photo MetadataBefore you remove anything, look at it. Here is how to view a photo's metadata on every platform.Open
- 7 min readHow to Watermark Photos Before SharingWhich kind of watermark to use, where to put it, and what it realistically achieves.Open
- 10 min readWhat to Check Before Sending a PDFFour things routinely survive deletion in a PDF — and every one of them looks removed in the viewer you checked it in.Open
Privacy
- 8 min readWhy Remove Metadata From Photos?Not paranoia, not nothing: a realistic account of what photo metadata gives away, and when it matters.Open
- 8 min readWhat Information Is Stored in a Photo?A field-by-field tour of everything a modern phone writes into a single photo file.Open
- 9 min readSelling Online: What Your Listing Photos RevealThe photos are of things you own, taken where you live, shown to people you have never met. That combination is unique to selling.Open
- 9 min readPhotographing Documents: What Your Phone RecordsWith most photos the picture is the sensitive part. With a document, the metadata is a second disclosure — of who photographed it, where, and when.Open
- 9 min readDating App Photos: What They RevealThe metadata is usually gone before anyone sees your profile. The photo itself is the part that links back to you.Open
Platforms
- 6 min readDoes Facebook Remove EXIF Data?Facebook strips most metadata from the images it serves — which is not the same as never having it.Open
- 6 min readDoes Instagram Remove EXIF Data?Instagram re-encodes everything you post — and what that does, and does not, do for your privacy.Open
- 6 min readDoes WhatsApp Remove Photo Metadata?The answer depends entirely on which of two buttons you press when you attach the file.Open
- 7 min readDoes Reddit Remove EXIF Data?Reddit re-encodes what you upload, which discards most metadata — but that only covers one of the several ways an image reaches Reddit.Open
- 8 min readDoes Discord Remove Metadata From Images?Discord behaves less like Instagram and more like sending a file — which is exactly why metadata tends to survive the trip.Open
- 8 min readDoes Google Photos Remove Metadata?Google Photos is a library rather than a feed, and libraries are built to preserve. That changes the answer completely.Open
AI & provenance
- 8 min readWhat Are C2PA Content Credentials?The signed provenance record now attached to images by Firefly, Photoshop and a growing list of cameras.Open
- 7 min readCan You Detect AI Images From Metadata?Metadata can confirm an image was generated. It can never confirm that one was not — and that asymmetry matters.Open
- 9 min readDoes Removing Metadata Bypass AI Detection?No. Metadata, pixel watermarks and visual classifiers are three different systems, and removing the first does nothing to the other two.Open
AI Images
- 9 min readHow AI Image Detectors Actually WorkThey never look at the metadata. Understanding what they do look at explains both why stripping EXIF changes nothing and why real photographs keep getting accused.Open
- 9 min readWhy Instagram Says Your Photo Was Made With AIThe label is triggered by a credential written into the file by your editor — not by anything Instagram sees in the picture. That distinction decides what you can do about it.Open
- 9 min readWhich Platforms Label AI Images, and HowFive platforms, four different mechanisms. The one a platform uses decides whether cleaning a file before upload changes anything at all.Open
- 10 min readWhich Apps Write AI Metadata Into Your PhotosSome write a signed credential, some write your entire prompt, and one of the most popular writes nothing at all. A reference for what ends up in the file.Open
- 9 min readHow to Prove You Took a PhotographDetectors are guesses and arguing with them goes nowhere. The evidence that settles it is the material a detector never looks at — if you still have it.Open
- 9 min readWhat the EU AI Act Means for Your Image FilesThe reason your editor suddenly writes provenance data on every export, and why the tools that do not yet are on a clock that runs out in December.Open