About Image Metadata Viewer
Image Metadata Viewer is a free browser-based tool for reading the information stored inside an image file — EXIF fields, camera and lens details, dimensions, timestamps and, where present, location data.
The site exists to do one job well. There is no account to create, no upload queue and no feature list to work through: you add an image, and the page tells you what is inside it.
What this website does
fawanews.ink hosts a single utility: an image metadata checker that opens a file you choose, decodes the structured data written into it, and presents that data in readable groups instead of raw tag numbers.
Reads the file itself
Format is verified from the file’s own bytes rather than trusting the extension, so a renamed or mislabelled file is still identified correctly.
Organises the results
Fields are grouped into file, image, EXIF, camera, date, GPS and other metadata, and any group with nothing to report is left out entirely.
Lets you keep the output
Copy any single value, copy the whole report, or download the results as a plain text file or as JSON for use elsewhere.
Why the tool was created
Metadata is easy to find if you already know where to look. Desktop photo software shows it, command-line tools show it, and most professionals have a workflow for it. Everyone else tends to end up on a website — and many of those websites ask you to upload a personal photo to a server you know nothing about, purely to read a few numbers that could have been read on your own device.
That is the gap this project was built for. The parsing work involved is well within what a browser can do, so there is no technical reason to send images anywhere. The tool was written to do the decoding locally, present the results plainly, and be honest about the fields it cannot read.
How you can inspect an image
The process takes a few seconds and works the same way on a phone, a tablet or a desktop computer.
Add your file
Drag an image onto the upload area, or use the browse button to pick one from your device or camera roll.
Let the page decode it
The image is read in place and its metadata blocks are parsed immediately. Nothing is queued, and there is no waiting on a server to respond.
Read and filter the results
Scan the grouped fields, or type into the filter box to jump straight to a value such as a lens, an ISO figure or a date.
Save what you need
Copy individual values, or export the full report as TXT or JSON if you want to keep it or pass it on.
What EXIF metadata means
EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. It is the agreed standard cameras and phones follow when they record the circumstances of a shot into the file itself. The data sits in a compact structured block, organised into directories of numbered tags: one set for general image properties, one for detailed capture settings, and an optional one for location.
An EXIF viewer’s role is translation. Tag 0x829D holding the value 4.0 means nothing on its own; matched against the published tag list it becomes “F-number: f/4.0”. Doing that across a file, in the right byte order for the device that wrote it, is most of what an EXIF metadata viewer actually does.
EXIF is the most familiar standard but not the only one. IPTC carries editorial information such as captions, credits and copyright notices. XMP is used by editing software to record its own settings and edit history. Both may sit alongside EXIF in the same file, and both are read where they are present.
What information may be available
The exact list depends entirely on the file. These are the categories that commonly appear:
File and image details
Name, size, verified format, MIME type, pixel dimensions, aspect ratio, bit depth, colour type and transparency. These are almost always available, even when a file carries no EXIF data at all.
Capture settings
Exposure time, aperture, ISO, focal length, exposure compensation, metering mode, flash status and white balance — the record of how a particular frame was taken.
Device and lens
Camera make and model, lens make, lens model, lens specification, and serial numbers or owner names where the manufacturer writes them.
Dates and times
When the image was captured, when it was digitised, and when the file was last changed — three timestamps that often differ from one another.
Location
Latitude, longitude, altitude and direction, when the device recorded them and nothing has since removed them. Location tagging is off by default on many devices.
Descriptive and editorial
Artist, copyright, software, image descriptions, user comments, IPTC caption fields, embedded colour profiles and text chunks written by editing tools.
Browser-based processing and privacy
The viewer is written in JavaScript that runs on your device. When you choose a file, the page reads it with the browser’s file interface, parses the bytes in memory and prints what it finds. There is no upload step and no third-party metadata service in the chain, so your image is not transmitted anywhere in order to be read.
Because the work is local, the tool keeps working if you disconnect from the internet after the page has loaded — a simple way to check the claim yourself rather than taking it on trust.
Two caveats are worth stating plainly. First, this describes how the tool handles your images; the website around it is an ordinary web page, and what it collects is set out in the Privacy Policy. Second, reading metadata here does not remove it from your file. If a photo carries coordinates, they still travel with it when you share it elsewhere.
Limitations worth knowing
A metadata tool is only as informative as the file it is given, and no browser-based parser can read everything. Rather than guess at values, the viewer reports what it can verify and says so when it cannot:
- Empty results are common and normal. Social platforms, messaging apps and web exports routinely strip metadata, and screenshots or software-generated graphics never had camera data to begin with.
- Format support varies. JPEG and TIFF hold the richest EXIF data. WebP can carry it, PNG occasionally does, and GIF and BMP have no EXIF support at all — for those you get structural details instead.
- Maker notes stay closed. Manufacturers store proprietary data in undocumented formats that differ between brands and models. The tool reports that such a block exists and how large it is, rather than inventing labels for it.
- Some containers are not decoded. HEIC and AVIF files are recognised and their basic details shown, but their metadata sits in a container structure the viewer does not currently parse.
- Metadata can be edited. Any field in a file can be changed or removed with the right software, so metadata is evidence of what a file says about itself, not proof of what happened.
Who can use it
Anyone. Photographers reviewing the settings behind a frame, designers confirming dimensions and colour space before placing an asset, developers debugging uploads and orientation flags, archivists dating a collection by capture time, and anyone who simply wants to know when a photo was taken or what is attached to it before sharing it.
No account, no sign-up and no limit on how many images you check. If something looks wrong, a format behaves unexpectedly, or you think a field is being read incorrectly, the contact page is the place to say so — that kind of report is genuinely useful.
See what your images are carrying
Open the viewer, add a file, and read the information stored inside it.
Open Image Metadata ViewerQuestions or corrections? Get in touch.