Image metadata: EXIF, IPTC and what survives editing
Last reviewed 2026-09-17. Every competitor figure links to the vendor's own page.
Images carry three main metadata blocks. EXIF records camera settings and often GPS location. IPTC holds captions, credits and rights. XMP is Adobe's extensible container. Most processing tools and upload pipelines strip some or all of it, usually without telling you.
The three metadata blocks
| Block | Written by | Contains | Keep it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXIF | Camera or phone | Settings, timestamp, often GPS | Strip GPS before publishing |
| IPTC | Photographer or editor | Caption, creator, credit, rights | Keep on licensed or editorial work |
| XMP | Editing software | Edit history, keywords, custom fields | Optional; useful for cataloguing |
| ICC profile | Camera or editor | Colour space definition | Always keep; colours shift without it |
The one block never to strip
The ICC colour profile is technically metadata, and many bulk stripping tools remove it alongside everything else. That is the one removal with a visible consequence: without a profile, software assumes sRGB, and any wide-gamut image immediately looks washed out.
If you strip metadata in bulk, confirm your tool preserves the ICC profile, or convert everything to sRGB first so the assumption happens to be correct.
What typically survives
| Step | Usual outcome |
|---|---|
| Format conversion to PNG | EXIF commonly dropped; PNG stores metadata differently |
| Saving from a browser-based editor | Frequently stripped entirely |
| Upload to major social platforms | Usually stripped, including GPS |
| Upload to a marketplace | Varies; assume nothing is preserved |
| Screenshotting an image | All original metadata lost |
A sensible default policy
- Keep full metadata on your archived masters; it is your record of the work
- Strip GPS from anything published publicly, particularly photos taken at home
- Keep IPTC creator and rights fields on licensed and editorial images
- Always preserve or correctly convert the ICC profile
- Verify by inspecting an exported file rather than trusting documentation
Frequently asked questions
What is EXIF data?
Metadata written by the camera: model, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, timestamp and frequently GPS coordinates. It is useful for cataloguing and for understanding how a shot was taken, and it is the block with the clearest privacy implications.
Does photo metadata reveal my location?
It can. Phones and many cameras embed GPS coordinates by default, often accurate to a few metres. Publishing an unstripped photo taken at home therefore publishes your address. Most large social platforms strip this on upload, but plenty of sites and direct file shares do not.
Does editing remove metadata?
Often, and inconsistently. Some tools preserve everything, some keep only the colour profile, and some strip all of it. Behaviour varies between tools and between operations, so test with a file you can inspect rather than assuming.
Should I strip metadata before publishing?
For personal photos published publicly, yes, at minimum GPS. For commercial and editorial work, no, because IPTC carries your credit and licensing terms, which is exactly the information that should travel with the image.
Does metadata affect SEO?
Search engines read filenames, alt text and surrounding page content, not EXIF. IPTC creator and credit fields can surface in Google Images licensing features, so they are worth keeping on licensed work, but EXIF has no ranking effect.
Does stripping metadata reduce file size?
Slightly. Metadata typically runs a few kilobytes to a few tens of kilobytes, which is negligible next to image data, though embedded thumbnails and full colour profiles can be larger. Strip for privacy or cleanliness, not for weight.