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Glossary Forensics

Metadata

Metadata is data about data: the hidden or secondary information a file carries about itself, such as its author, creation date, device or location.

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In more detail

Photos carry EXIF, Office files and PDFs record the author and editing software, and every file system keeps timestamps. Metadata helps investigators reconstruct who made a file and when, and it can leak private details unintentionally, so remove it before publishing sensitive documents.

Try these tools

EXIF Metadata Remover

Remove EXIF, GPS location, camera serial number, XMP, IPTC and comments from JPEG, PNG and WebP photos in your browser.

Document Forensics

Analyze PDF and Office documents in your browser - reconstruct a PDF's incremental-save revision history.

Image Forensics

Analyze photos for tampering with ELA, noise analysis, clone detection and EXIF metadata extraction.

See also

  • Glossary EXIF
    EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is metadata stored inside photos that records the camera, settings, date and often the GPS location.
  • Glossary Geotag
    A geotag is geographic location data, such as latitude and longitude, attached to a photo, video or post.
  • Glossary Timestomping
    Timestomping is deliberately changing a file's timestamps to hide when it was created or modified.
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