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 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.
· 4 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.
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 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.
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.