Four different things called metadata
| Block | Written by | Typically holds | | --- | --- | --- | | EXIF | Cameras and phones | Device, exposure, date, GPS | | IPTC | Agencies, asset managers | Caption, credit, keywords, rights | | XMP | Adobe tools | Edit history, author, custom fields | | ICC | Everything | The colour profile the numbers mean |
They coexist in one file and overlap in confusing ways, which is the reason to look at all of them together rather than one at a time.
What to check before publishing
- Location, flagged separately above — the single most common accidental disclosure
- Creator, byline and copyright — correct if you own the image, awkward if you do not
- Software and edit history — reveals more about your process than you probably intend
- Original filename fields — often the client name, project code or a path from your own machine
Removing all of it
Re-encoding through the image compressor drops every block, because a new file is built from pixels alone. Editing metadata field by field is a different job and one this tool deliberately does not do — for publishing, removing everything is both simpler and safer.
Questions
How is this different from the EXIF viewer?+
The [EXIF viewer](/t/exif-viewer) shows the camera story: device, exposure, date, location. This shows everything the file carries, including the editorial and rights blocks that publishing workflows write and that EXIF alone would miss.
What are IPTC and XMP?+
IPTC is the newsroom standard for captions, credits, keywords and usage rights, written by photo agencies and asset managers. XMP is Adobe's more general container, used by Lightroom and Photoshop for edit history and their own fields. Both are separate from EXIF and both survive most exports.
Can metadata identify who edited a file?+
Sometimes. XMP can record the software, the edit history and an author name; IPTC carries credit and byline fields. That is deliberate in a newsroom and a leak everywhere else — worth checking before publishing a file you were sent.
Why does the same field appear twice with different values?+
Because EXIF, IPTC and XMP all define overlapping fields — description, creator, date — and editing software does not always update every copy. When they disagree, XMP is usually the most recently written.