What is EXIF — photo metadata and GPS
What EXIF is: camera settings and GPS in a JPEG, why re-encoding drops it, and how to compress a photo without uploading.
EXIF is hidden metadata in many JPEGs: camera model, exposure, date, and sometimes GPS. It is useful for photographers and a privacy leak if you share a holiday shot from home.
Re-encoding in a browser canvas or a compressor writes a new file without those tags. ToolsHelper compress drops EXIF on JPEG, WebP, AVIF and PNG output.
EXIF is a block of metadata inside JPEG and some other files: camera, time, orientation, and sometimes GPS. Viewers may rotate the picture from the orientation tag without changing pixels. A messenger may strip the block, which drops the GPS and also the rotation hint. This page defines the block. Compressing or rotating in the studio bakes pixels and can drop the tags.
FAQ
Does resize keep EXIF?
No. A new canvas file does not copy the old tags.
Is GPS always present?
Only if the camera or phone wrote a location. Many apps strip it already.