Guides
How photo metadata works, how location is recovered from an image, and what the available tools can and cannot actually do.
Finding where a photo was taken
How location is recovered from an image — from GPS tags to visual clues — and where the limits are.
How to Find a Photo’s Location With a Chrome Extension
A Chrome extension can find a photo’s location from any web page. How GeoSpy reads GPS data first, estimates from visible clues otherwise, and where it stops.
· 11 min read
ChatGPT Got Scarily Good at Locating Photos. The Viral Prompt Wasn’t Why
The 1,100-word GeoGuessr prompt for ChatGPT went viral in 2025. A 200-photo test found a short prompt did better. What it asks, what works, how to check.
· 10 min read
Strava Can Hide Your Home. Researchers Found It Anyway
Strava maps have exposed army bases, a president’s hotel and homes behind privacy zones. Is Strava safe? What researchers found, and the settings that help.
· 13 min read
One WhatsApp Call Can Give Away Your City
A direct WhatsApp call can show the other person your IP address, which often points to your city. What the setting hides, what it costs and what it misses.
· 11 min read
Can Someone See Your Location on Snapchat?
Only friends you pick can see you on Snap Map, but they may see more than a dot: home, trips, battery. What Ghost Mode hides, what it misses, and the fixes.
· 10 min read
Dating Apps Can Leak Your Location. Researchers Showed How
Dating apps show others only a distance or an area, yet researchers found six of 15 could reveal a near-exact location. How it worked, and how to stay safe.
· 11 min read
Sharenting: What Your Kids’ Photos Tell Strangers
A school badge, a house number or a live post can show strangers where a child lives, learns or plays. The sharenting risks, and a checklist for safer posts.
· 11 min read
One Selfie Can Reveal Where You Live
Even with GPS data stripped, a selfie can give your home away: window views, house numbers, plates, reflections. What to check before you post, and why.
· 11 min read
How to Find Where a Video Was Filmed
Find where a video was filmed: read GPS from the original file with ExifTool, pull sharp frames with FFmpeg, reverse search them and verify. Tested commands.
· 14 min read
How to Find Out Where a Photo Was Taken
Four ways to work out where a photo was taken: GPS metadata, reverse image search, AI geolocation and reading the image itself. What each can and cannot do.
· 6 min read
How to Find Photo Location Without EXIF Data
The metadata is gone, so what is left? Three approaches that work on a stripped photo, what each realistically achieves, and where they stop.
· 5 min read
How to Find Where an Instagram Photo Was Taken
Instagram strips photo metadata on upload, so the coordinates are gone before you see the post. What is left, what actually works, and where the limits are.
· 4 min read
Is It Legal to Find Where a Photo Was Taken?
Reading an image is rarely the problem — what you do with the result is. Where the line sits between analysis, research and conduct that is actually unlawful.
· 5 min read
Do Screenshots Have Location Data?
A screenshot is a new image, so it never inherits the original photo’s GPS tags. What it does carry, and why that still does not make it anonymous.
· 4 min read
Photo Location in Google Photos: Read It, Remove It
Google Photos shows where a photo was taken and can estimate it when there is no GPS tag. What it will not do is remove a location your camera wrote.
· 4 min read
Why Do Photos Lose Location When Shared?
Photos lose location because platforms re-encode uploads, not because anyone chose to protect you. The mechanism, the routes that keep it, and why it matters.
· 4 min read
EXIF & photo metadata
What the hidden data inside a photo records, how to read it, and how to remove it before you share.
How to View EXIF Data in Chrome, With or Without an Extension
Chrome has no EXIF panel of its own. Three ways to read a web photo’s camera, date and GPS tags, and how much of the web each EXIF extension can read.
· 8 min read
Your Photos Can Carry Your Location. The Army Learned the Hard Way
In 2007, soldiers’ photos showed insurgents where four Army helicopters stood. When phones save location in photos, who can see it, and how to check yours.
· 10 min read
How to Turn Off Location on iPhone Photos
Three switches control location on iPhone photos: one for new shots, one for photos you already took, one for each share. Steps for iOS 26 and iOS 27.
· 8 min read
How to Remove Pictures of My House From Zillow
Claim your home on Zillow, open Edit Facts, then hide or delete the photos. Steps for Redfin, Realtor.com and UK sites too, and what to do if photos stay.
· 12 min read
Your Photo Edits Can Leave a Trail. A Royal Photo Showed How
A royal photo pulled by news agencies had two Photoshop saves in its metadata. Six checks that show if a photo was edited, and what your own edits reveal.
· 12 min read
How to Find Out When a Picture Was Taken
Read a photo’s real capture date on any phone or computer, see why one study found 37% of photos over an hour off, and date pictures that carry no metadata.
· 10 min read
Posting Holiday Photos? Burglars Read Social Media Too
Police say wait until you’re home to post vacation photos. What the burglar surveys really found, what insurers say, and a simple routine for sharing safely.
· 11 min read
What Is EXIF Data? The Hidden Information Inside Every Photo
EXIF data is hidden metadata your camera writes into every photo: settings, timestamps and often GPS coordinates. Here is what it records and how to read it.
· 7 min read
How to View EXIF Data on iPhone
See the camera settings, timestamp and GPS location stored in any iPhone photo — using the built-in Photos app, with no third-party tool required.
· 4 min read
How to Remove EXIF Data From Your Photos
Strip GPS coordinates, timestamps and the camera serial number from a photo before you share it — on iPhone, Android, Windows and macOS, with no extra tools.
· 4 min read
How to Find GPS Coordinates in a Photo
Read the exact latitude and longitude stored inside a geotagged photo, understand the degrees-minutes-seconds format, and know how far to trust the numbers.
· 4 min read
Which Apps Strip EXIF Data When You Share a Photo?
Which platforms remove photo metadata on upload and which pass it through untouched — plus how to test any app yourself in under two minutes.
· 4 min read
How to View EXIF Data on Windows and Mac
Read camera settings, timestamps and GPS coordinates with tools already on your computer: Windows File Explorer, macOS Preview, and exiftool for hidden tags.
· 4 min read
The Privacy Risks Hidden in Photo Metadata
What a geotagged photo gives away, why camera serial numbers matter as much as coordinates, and which habits cut the exposure without losing your archive.
· 4 min read
EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP: The Three Metadata Standards
A photo can carry three metadata blocks written by different systems. What each standard stores, which survives editing, and which one actually holds the GPS.
· 4 min read
Tools & comparisons
Reverse image search, AI geolocation and metadata viewers compared on what they actually do.
The Best OSINT Chrome Extensions for Image Investigations
Eight OSINT Chrome extensions for checking images, plus Google Lens in Chrome: who makes each, what it costs, what it can read and when to use it.
· 11 min read
How to Reverse Image Search on Chrome: Lens, Bing and TinEye
Right-click any picture in Chrome to search it with Google Lens. The exact menu names on each device, why the option vanishes, and how to add Bing or TinEye.
· 9 min read
Can Google Lens Find a Location From a Photo?
Sometimes. Lens names famous landmarks and finds pages that show the same scene, but ordinary streets stump it. When to check GPS data or use an AI estimate.
· 13 min read
GeoSpy Premium: Weekly or Yearly Subscription
GeoSpy Premium is a subscription on geospys.com: 7.99 US dollars a week or 29.99 a year for unlimited photo location analysis under fair use. Cancel any time.
· 11 min read
Can ChatGPT Tell Where a Photo Was Taken?
Often, yes. In Bellingcat’s tests, three ChatGPT models beat Google Lens. How close it gets, when it reads GPS data or your IP instead, and where it fails.
· 11 min read
Photo Geolocation API: What It Can and Can’t Tell You
What a photo geolocation API returns, how it differs from EXIF GPS, reverse image search and landmark detection, where it fails, and how to test one.
· 11 min read
How to Identify a Landmark From a Photo
Name a landmark or building from a picture with Google Lens, iPhone Visual Look Up, Bing or Yandex, and what to do when the building is not famous.
· 12 min read
The Best Reverse Image Search Tools, Compared
Google Lens, Yandex, Bing and TinEye do different things. A comparison of what each engine is good at, and when to reach for AI geolocation instead.
· 6 min read
Google Lens vs Yandex: Which Finds Places Better?
Two engines that fail on different photos. Which one to reach for when the subject is a building, a product, a landmark or an ordinary street.
· 4 min read
How Does AI Geolocation Work?
An AI geolocation model does not look anything up. It reads the same visual evidence a trained human would, and its limits follow directly from that.
· 4 min read
How to Reverse Image Search on Your Phone
Every engine works from a mobile browser, no app required. The routes on iPhone and Android, plus the cropping step that decides whether you get a result.
· 4 min read
TinEye Alternatives: What to Use for Which Job
TinEye answers a narrow question very well. Which tools replace it, which only look like they do, and when nothing else will actually work.
· 4 min read
The Best EXIF Viewer Tools (and When You Need One)
Your operating system already reads most metadata. Which tools show the fields it hides, and why uploading a photo to a web viewer deserves a second thought.
· 4 min read
How to Verify if a Photo Is Real
Three separate questions hide inside "is this photo real". A verification order that answers each one, and the checks that fail more often than people expect.
· 4 min read
GeoGuessr & OSINT
Reading a landscape like a geolocator: country clues, Street View coverage, and responsible practice.
Anyone Can See Your Front Door on Google Maps. Here’s How to Blur It
The exact steps to blur your house in Google Street View and Apple Look Around, the proof of address Google asks for, and what a blur still leaves visible.
· 12 min read
GeoGuessr AI: Can a Machine Beat the Best Players?
Stanford’s PIGEON beat pro Trevor Rainbolt six games to none. How GeoGuessr AI reads a scene, where humans still win, and what the rules say about using it.
· 10 min read
How to Get Better at GeoGuessr
Good players are not guessing faster — they are reading a fixed checklist in a fixed order. The clues that carry the most information, and how to drill them.
· 6 min read
Free GeoGuessr Alternatives Worth Playing
Which geography guessing games are genuinely free, what the free tiers restrict, and why almost all of them depend on the same underlying imagery.
· 4 min read
How to Identify a Country From Photo Clues
Regulated things beat natural things. The clues that change abruptly at borders, ordered by how much each one narrows the search and how fast you can read it.
· 4 min read
Google Street View Coverage: Where It Exists and Where It Doesn’t
Coverage is not a map of the world, it is a map of where a car could drive and a government allowed it. Which gaps exist, and why they matter for geolocation.
· 4 min read
An OSINT Photo Geolocation Workflow
A repeatable order for placing an image, the discipline that keeps it honest, and the point where continuing stops being research and becomes surveillance.
· 4 min read
How to Find Location From Shadows in a Photo
Shadows will not give you a country, but they settle hemisphere, time of day and season — which is often exactly what separates two candidate answers.
· 4 min read
Want to try it rather than read about it? Analyse a photo.