EXIF vs XMP vs IPTC metadata
A single photo can carry three separate sets of metadata, written by different software for different reasons. Removing one and leaving the others is a common way location leaks.
| EXIF | XMP | IPTC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Written by | The camera or phone, at capture | Editing apps (Lightroom, Photoshop, phone editors) | Photographers, agencies, newsrooms, DAM systems |
| Format | Binary TIFF-style tags | XML packet (ISO 16684-1) | Legacy binary IIM, or IPTC Core/Extension inside XMP |
| Lives in a JPEG | APP1 "Exif" | APP1 "http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/" | APP13 "Photoshop 3.0" (and XMP) |
| Typical content | Camera, lens, exposure, date, GPS, thumbnail | Ratings, keywords, edit history, copies of EXIF | Caption, headline, creator, credit, copyright, city/country |
| Privacy risk | GPS, serial numbers, times | GPS copies, names, software history | Names, written places |
EXIF: what the camera knew
EXIF is written at the moment of capture, by the device. It is strict and technical: numbered tags with fixed meanings for the lens, the shutter speed, the date and the GPS fix. More on each field in What is EXIF data?
XMP: what the software did
XMP was introduced by Adobe in 2001 and became the ISO 16684-1 standard in 2012. Because it's XML, any app can add its own namespace, so XMP packets grow over a photo's life: star ratings, colour labels, crop and exposure adjustments, the original filename and a list of apps that saved it. Editors often mirror EXIF values into XMP, which means a photo can still carry GPS in XMP after its EXIF has been cleaned by a tool that only knows EXIF.
IPTC: what the photographer wrote
The IPTC Photo Metadata Standard exists so that a news photo's caption, credit and rights travel with the file from photographer to agency to publisher. Its location fields are written in words: city, state, country, sublocation. No coordinates needed to give a place away.
Checking and clearing all three
The ExifProbe viewer reads EXIF, XMP and IPTC and flags names and place fields in any of them. The remover deletes all three block types and then re-reads the file to confirm that none remain.
Questions people ask
What is XMP metadata?
XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) is an Adobe-created standard, now ISO 16684-1, that stores metadata as an XML packet inside the file or in a separate .xmp "sidecar" file. Lightroom, Photoshop and many phone editors use it for ratings, keywords, edit settings and copies of EXIF values, including GPS.
What is IPTC metadata?
IPTC metadata is a set of fields defined by the International Press Telecommunications Council for news photos: caption, headline, keywords, creator, credit line, copyright and written location (city, country, sublocation). The modern IPTC Core and Extension schemas are stored as XMP.
Which one holds the GPS location?
GPS coordinates normally live in EXIF, but XMP can hold a copy (exif:GPSLatitude) after a photo passes through an editor, and IPTC holds written place names. A proper metadata remover clears all three.
What is an XMP sidecar file?
A small .xmp text file saved next to a RAW photo, holding edits and metadata so the RAW file itself is never modified. If you share a RAW with its sidecar, the sidecar's metadata goes too.