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Every photograph carries a hidden record written by the camera at the moment the shutter fired: the date and time to the second, the exact coordinates if location services were on, and the settings the camera chose. Most people never see any of it.
These guides explain what is stored in your photos, how to read it, why it sometimes goes missing, and how to control what travels with an image when you share it. If you want to check a photo right now rather than read about it, the Photo Trace tool reads any photo in your browser without uploading it.
Reading what your photos already contain.
The file date is not the capture date. Where the real timestamp lives, how to read it, and what to do when it is missing.
Reading GPS coordinates from a photo, turning them into a place name, and judging how accurate the position really is.
A tour of the hidden information inside every photo — what each field means, how GPS is stored, and which platforms strip it.
When the data is there but you cannot see it.
Android removes GPS coordinates from photos handed to websites. Why it happens, how to confirm it, and three ways around it.
Controlling what travels with a photo when you share it.
Stripping coordinates on iPhone, Android and desktop, which apps do it for you, and how to verify it actually worked.
Which platforms keep your coordinates, which discard them, and how to check before you post.
Organising, dating and writing about your photographs.
Turning thousands of unsorted images into a clear record of where you went and when.
Using dates, coordinates and camera clues to work out where a forgotten picture was taken.
How real location and timing details turn a generic caption into something worth reading.
What vision models actually see, where they are reliable, and where they get things wrong.
The technical name is EXIF — Exchangeable Image File Format — a block of information written into the image file itself rather than attached alongside it. It travels with the photograph when the file is copied, which is why a picture emailed across the world still knows what time it was taken.
Three groups of fields matter to most people. The timestamp records the moment of capture to the second, and is distinct from the file date your computer shows. The GPS block holds latitude, longitude and altitude, along with a note of whether the fix came from satellites or from mobile towers. The camera block holds the make and model, aperture, shutter speed, flash mode and image dimensions.
None of this is visible in the picture. You need a reader to see it.
Why does my photo show the wrong date? You are almost certainly looking at the file date rather than the capture date. Copying, downloading or editing a photo resets the file date while leaving the original timestamp intact inside the image.
Why has the location disappeared? Five causes account for nearly all cases: location services were off, the phone had no satellite lock, the photo was shared through a messaging app, it is a screenshot, or — on Android — the system removed the coordinates before the browser could read them. Each leaves a different trace, which makes them distinguishable.
Can metadata be recovered once it is gone? Not from that copy. Stripping is permanent for the file it happened to. The original may still carry everything, however, which is why a photo can show a location in your gallery but not after being sent through a chat app.
Can timestamps be trusted? They are as accurate as the camera clock was at the time, and they can be edited afterwards without leaving an obvious trace. For everyday purposes they are reliable. Where a date carries legal or financial weight, treat it as supporting evidence rather than proof.
Is it safe to share photos? Large social platforms generally strip location on upload. Email attachments, cloud links and direct transfers usually do not — they send the file exactly as it is. The reliable rule: services that re-compress your image discard metadata; services that transfer it intact preserve it.
Metadata can be read entirely inside a web browser, because the file never has to leave your device to be parsed. That matters for a category of tool where the alternative is uploading personal photographs to someone else’s server.
Photo Trace works this way: the photo is read locally, and only the resulting coordinates — never the image — are sent anywhere, and then only to look up a place name.
Photo Trace reads the date, GPS location and camera settings from any photo entirely inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and no account is needed.