Does my photo show my location?

If the photo still carries its EXIF GPS tags and was taken at your home, yes. The coordinates can be pasted straight into any mapping service and resolve to within a few metres.

Does turning off location services remove GPS from old photos?

No. It only affects photos taken afterwards. Every photo already in your library keeps the coordinates it was saved with.

EXIF is a block of structured information a camera writes inside every image file: the make and model, lens, exposure, the date and time to the second, and on phones the GPS coordinates. It sits alongside the picture rather than in it.

Does removing EXIF reduce image quality?

No. Metadata is stored separately from the pixels. Stripping it leaves the image byte for byte identical, with no re-compression.

Can a cropped photo be uncropped?

Sometimes. Cameras store a small preview inside the file, and if it was written before you cropped, it still shows the original framing.

Is blurring safe for hiding text?

Pixelation of text is the least safe, since researchers have reconstructed it by searching for the rendering that pixelates to the same blocks. Heavy blur on a photograph is much harder to undo. Neither is as reliable as cropping the content out and re-exporting.

Do screenshots contain metadata?

They carry no GPS, because they are made by the operating system rather than a camera. They do carry timestamps, and any editor you open them in afterwards adds its own name and version.

Does WhatsApp remove photo metadata?

Sending an image through the photo picker generally re-compresses it and drops most metadata. Sending the same image through the document or file option delivers the original file intact, GPS included.

Does email remove metadata from attachments?

No. Attachments are delivered exactly as they were attached. The same is true of a link to a file in cloud storage.

Do iPhone photos contain GPS?

Yes, if location access is enabled for the camera, which is the default. iPhones also save in HEIC by default, a format many web tools cannot read properly.

Can this page read HEIC files?

Yes. It parses the HEIC container directly, resolving the EXIF and XMP items through the file's own index, and can clean them without disturbing the image.

Does a PDF contain the author's name?

Usually. The author field is typically filled in automatically from the user account of the computer that created it, and nobody thinks to check it.

Can deleted text be recovered from a PDF?

If the file was saved incrementally, often yes. Earlier versions of the content remain in the same file. You can spot this because the marker that ends a PDF appears more than once.

How do I properly redact a PDF?

Remove the content itself rather than covering it, then flatten or re-export the document. A black rectangle drawn over text is a shape placed on top, and the text underneath stays selectable.

Does Word save the author's name in the document?

Yes. It is written into the document properties from your Office account, and it stays there until it is removed.

Can someone see what I deleted in a Word document?

If tracked changes were on, yes. Deleted text is retained in the file and appears the moment anyone changes their own view setting.

Can someone unhide my hidden Excel sheets?

Yes, by right-clicking any sheet tab. Hiding is a display setting, not a protection measure.

Are PowerPoint speaker notes visible to recipients?

Yes. Anyone who opens the file can read them. They are only hidden while presenting.

Can a recruiter see who created my CV?

If the author property is still populated, yes. Many CVs still carry the name of whoever wrote the template they started from.

Is it safe to check confidential documents here?

The file is read from your disk and never transmitted. You can confirm this by opening your browser's network tab and watching while you use the page.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Everything runs in the browser. There is no account, no upload, and no software to install.

Is there an online version of exiftool?

Several exist, but most upload your file to a server. This page does the analysis locally instead. For batch work on your own machine, exiftool itself remains the better tool.

Privacy and cookies

The short version: your files never leave your device, and this site stores nothing about you. The advertising is a separate matter, and it is set out in full below.

Last updated: 2026-08-19

Your files

Files you check on this site are read by your own browser, from your own disk, and are never transmitted anywhere. They are not uploaded, not stored, not logged, not scanned on a server and not seen by anyone. No copy of a file, and no information read from a file — no filename, no size, no location data, no author name, no field value of any kind — is transmitted off your device or recorded.

You do not have to take this on trust. Open your browser's developer tools, choose the Network tab, and drop a file onto the page: no request is made. The page also continues to work with the network disconnected entirely.

Cleaned files are generated in your browser's memory and saved straight to your downloads. Nothing persists once you close the tab.

What this site itself collects

Nothing. This site sets no cookies of its own, uses no local storage, has no accounts, no sign-up, no newsletter and no contact form. No personal information is collected, stored or shared by the site operator.

Advertising and third-party cookies

This site is funded by advertising served through Google AdSense. This means the following, and you should read it before using the site if it concerns you:

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve adverts based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve adverts to you based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet.
You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
You can opt out of third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info.
Google's own practices are described in the Google Privacy & Terms pages.

Advertising is served alongside the page and has no access whatsoever to your files or to anything read from them, because that information never leaves your browser to begin with.

Where required by law, visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are shown a consent message before personalised advertising cookies are set, and may decline. Declining does not affect the tool, which works identically either way.

Server logs

This site is hosted on Netlify. Like any web host, its infrastructure processes standard request information such as IP address, browser type and the page requested, in order to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. This is handled by the host and is not accessed or retained by the site operator for any analytical purpose.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.

Your rights

Because this site collects no personal data itself, there is nothing held about you to access, correct or delete. For data processed by Google in connection with advertising, use the opt-out links above or contact Google directly. If you have a question about any of this, use the contact page.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page will change with it.

Disclaimer

This site is provided free and without warranty of any kind. It is a useful check, not a compliance product or a security guarantee. For anything where the consequences are serious, treat it as one step in a process defined by your own qualified advisers.