The Details tab in a file’s Properties mixes three different things, and only some of it is real image metadata. Embedded metadata, such as camera model, GPS, date taken, author and copyright, lives inside the file, travels with it and can be removed. Built-in properties, such as dimensions and bit depth, also live in the file but cannot be removed because they describe the image itself. System specific information, such as file location, date created, size and owner, is stored by Windows, not in the file, so it is not really image metadata at all and changes the moment you copy or share the file. So you can strip personal metadata, you cannot strip the dimensions, and the file dates and owner were never inside the image to begin with.
What You Are Actually Looking At
Right-click any image in Windows, open Properties and click the Details tab. You see a long list of fields, and it is tempting to call all of it “metadata.” Most guides do. But that list is actually three separate types of information stacked into one window, and treating them as the same thing is where the confusion starts.
To make this concrete, here is the Details tab for a sample photo, sample-photo.jpg. A photo straight from a camera is full of metadata, which makes it easy to see what each type of information is and is not.
The Description and Origin sections at the top hold descriptive metadata like Title, Tags, Authors and Copyright. The Dimensions show 4032 by 3024. Keep that contrast in mind, because those two things belong to completely different categories.
The Three Kinds of Information in a Photo’s Properties
Here is image metadata explained the practical way. Every field in that Details tab falls into one of three buckets. Knowing which bucket a field is in tells you instantly whether it is real metadata, whether it can be removed and whether it follows the file when you share it.
Let me take each one in turn, with the field you would see in that Properties window.
1. Embedded Image Metadata (the Real Metadata)
So what is image metadata in the real sense? This is what people mean, or should mean, when they say it. It is information written into the file itself, in dedicated sections of the image data. It describes the picture and how it was made, and it stays with the file when you copy, email or upload it.
In the Properties window this is the Description, Origin, Camera and Advanced photo sections. It splits into two broad types. The first is technical data the camera records automatically, the make and model, exposure time, F-stop, ISO, focal length, flash and on many phones the GPS coordinates. The second is descriptive data a person or software adds, the title, tags, rating, author, copyright and comments.
On this photo these fields are filled in, the camera maker and model, the exposure settings and the GPS location. This is exactly where the GPS coordinate and the camera serial number live, which is the part that matters most for privacy.
This embedded metadata is the data you can remove, and the data that really does leak when you share a file without cleaning it.
2. Built-In Image Properties (Cannot Be Removed)
The second bucket also lives inside the file, but it works differently. These are the built-in properties (the technical name is intrinsic properties) that describe the raw image itself, the Dimensions (4032 by 3024), Width, Height, Bit depth (24), color representation and compression. Windows reads these directly from the image data. One field in this area is an exception. Resolution, the dpi value, is actually a metadata tag rather than a true built-in property, so it can be changed or stripped without altering a single pixel. The pixel dimensions and bit depth cannot.
You cannot remove these, and that is not a limitation, it is just logic. An image has a width whether you like it or not. A picture that is 4032 pixels wide is 4032 pixels wide. There is no “personal information” to strip out of a dimension, so metadata removal tools leave these fields alone. They are facts about the picture, not data attached to it.
A useful test
If a field would still have to be true for the image to display correctly, it is a built-in property and cannot be removed. Width, height, bit depth and color model all pass this test. A camera serial number or a GPS coordinate does not, the image looks identical with or without it, which is exactly why those can be stripped.
3. System Specific Information (Not in the File)
This is the bucket almost everyone gets wrong, and it is the heart of why this article exists. Scroll to the bottom of the Details tab and you reach the File section.
Name, Item type, File location (C:\Users\Sample\Pictures), Date created, Date modified, Size, Attributes, Owner (SAMPLE-PC\User) and Computer (SAMPLE-PC). None of this is stored inside the image. It is file system information, kept by Windows about the file as it lives on this particular machine.
The proof is what happens when the file moves. Copy this photo to another computer and the File location changes, the Date created becomes the moment of the copy, the Owner becomes whoever copied it and the Computer changes too. Email it to a friend and their machine assigns its own values. The picture inside is identical, but every field in the File section is rewritten by the new system.
The mistake almost everyone makes
People see Date created or Owner in this section and worry it will expose them when they share the image. It will not, because it is not in the file. Meanwhile the data that does travel, the GPS coordinate and camera serial in the embedded metadata above, is the part worth worrying about. The visible File section is local and harmless to share. The quieter embedded section is the one to clean.
One field trips people up more than any other. The Date created in the File section is not when the photo was taken. That is a file system timestamp, set when this copy of the file landed on this disk. The real capture time, if it exists, sits in the Origin section as Date taken, which is embedded EXIF. On this photo, Date taken shows August 2025 (when the shot was taken) while Date created shows May 2026 (when this copy was made), which tells you straight away the two are unrelated.
What Travels With the File and What Does Not
The file metadata vs image metadata distinction comes down to one thing, location. Image metadata is in the file, file metadata is held by the system around it.
The cleanest way to hold all this in your head is to ask one question of any field, does it live inside the file or outside it. That single line predicts everything else.
So when you upload a photo to a website or attach it to an email, you are sending the embedded metadata and the built-in properties. You are not sending your folder path, your Windows username or your file dates. Those stay behind and get replaced.
What You Can Remove, and What You Cannot
Now the practical question. Here is each bucket and what removal actually means for it.
| Type | Example fields | Can you remove it? |
|---|---|---|
| Embedded descriptive metadata | Title, Tags, Author, Copyright, Comments, Rating | Yes, fully |
| Embedded camera metadata | Camera model, GPS, date taken, ISO, serial number | Yes, fully |
| Built-in image properties | Dimensions, width, height, bit depth, color | No, structural |
| System and file system info | Location, date created, size, owner, computer | Not applicable, not in the file |
The headline is simple. You can strip the embedded metadata, both the camera data and the descriptive data. You cannot strip the built-in properties, and you would not want to. And the system information is not yours to remove from the file, because it was never in there. It changes on its own as the file moves.
In Windows, the built-in way to strip embedded metadata is the “Remove Properties and Personal Information” link at the bottom of the Details tab. It offers two choices, create a copy with all possible properties removed or remove selected properties from the current file. That sounds complete. It is not, and the next section is why.
Before and After: What a Metadata Remover Strips
To see this in action, here is what a metadata remover does to a photo like the one above. Straight off a camera it is full of metadata. Here is what a metadata remover takes out and what it leaves behind. The example values below are arbitrary, but they are the kind of data a real photo carries.
To make the comparison concrete, here are the actual Details panels side by side, with the metadata present and then removed.
Notice the pattern. Everything removed (camera model, date taken, GPS, author, copyright, tags, software) is embedded metadata, the EXIF, IPTC and XMP described earlier. The one field that survives, dimensions, is a built-in property. A remover cannot take it out, because the image needs a size to exist. And the system information, the file location and dates, is not shown here at all, because it was never inside the file for a remover to touch.
So a metadata remover does one job, it clears the embedded layer. That is precisely the layer that carries your private details, the GPS coordinate that shows where a photo was taken and the author and copyright that name you. Strip it before sharing, and the picture looks identical while the trail behind it is gone.
The Catch With the Windows Removal Tool
The “Remove Properties and Personal Information” feature is convenient, and for casual sharing it is better than nothing. But it does not do what most people assume, and the gap matters if you care about privacy.
Security researcher Didier Stevens documented the core problem. When you use this feature on a JPEG, Windows removes the metadata pointers, the small structures that tell software where each field lives, but it does not overwrite the actual values. The camera model, the GPS string and the timestamps stay sitting in the file’s binary as orphaned data. They no longer show up in the Details tab, so the file looks clean, but anyone with a basic hex editor or a strings utility can still read them out. This behavior was confirmed on Windows 10 and 11 and remains the case in 2026.
There is a second gap. The built-in tool also skips several kinds of metadata entirely. It does not touch XMP data blocks, IPTC blocks, the EXIF inside the embedded thumbnail preview or the proprietary maker notes that Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras write. So even setting aside the orphaned-data issue, a file cleaned this way can still carry camera and editing information.
What this means in practice
The Windows tool makes metadata invisible in the Details tab without fully deleting it. For sharing a photo with family that is fine. For anything sensitive, a tool that rewrites the file and strips every segment (for example ExifTool, or a viewer that re-saves the image) removes the data for real. Always verify a cleaned file rather than trusting that the empty Details tab means empty file.
Two tools that make this practical
The Univik Metadata Viewer shows exactly what an image carries, every EXIF, IPTC and XMP field, so you can see what is there before you share. The Univik Metadata Remover then strips the embedded metadata cleanly, rewriting the file so nothing is left orphaned behind. Both run on Windows.
EXIF, IPTC and XMP: The Technical Layer
If you want to understand the embedded metadata properly, it is not one thing. It is three overlapping standards, and knowing them explains why a single removal tool can miss some and catch others.
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is the camera standard. It stores the technical capture data automatically, make, model, exposure, ISO, lens and GPS when the device records it. Almost everything in the Camera and Advanced photo sections of the Properties window is EXIF.
IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) is the descriptive and rights standard, built originally for newsrooms. It carries captions, keywords, the creator’s name and copyright, the information that says what a photo is about and who owns it.
XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) is Adobe’s flexible, XML-based standard. It can hold EXIF and IPTC values together, plus editing history and custom fields, and it can live inside the file or in a separate sidecar file. The star Rating you see in the Description section is written into the file as metadata, usually as XMP and Windows-specific rating tags.
These three coexist in the same image, which is why thorough removal has to address all of them. A tool that clears EXIF but ignores XMP and IPTC leaves real metadata behind. A metadata viewer that reads all three is the way to see what an image actually holds before you decide what to strip. For the formal definitions, the IPTC photo metadata standard is the primary reference, and Didier Stevens’ analysis of the Windows removal flaw documents the orphaned-data behavior in detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is image file metadata?
Image file metadata is information stored inside an image that describes the picture and how it was made. It includes EXIF data the camera records automatically, such as model, exposure and GPS plus descriptive IPTC or XMP data a person adds, such as title, author and copyright. This embedded metadata travels with the file when you copy or share it, and it can be removed. It is separate from the file’s dimensions and from system details like location and dates.
What is the difference between file metadata and image metadata?
Image metadata lives inside the file and describes the picture, so it follows the file everywhere. File metadata, like location, date created, size and owner, is stored by the operating system about the file on a particular computer. It is not inside the image and changes whenever the file is copied, emailed or moved. The file’s Date created is not when the photo was taken, that is a separate embedded field called Date taken.
What metadata can be removed from an image?
You can remove all embedded metadata, both the camera EXIF data (model, GPS, date taken, serial number) and the descriptive data (title, tags, author, copyright, comments). You cannot remove built-in properties like dimensions, bit depth and color representation, because they describe the image itself. System information like file location and dates is not in the file, so there is nothing to remove from the image, it simply changes as the file moves.
Why can’t I remove the dimensions or owner from an image’s properties?
Dimensions, width, height and bit depth cannot be removed because they are built into the image, the picture has to have a size to display. The Owner and other File section fields cannot be removed through the image because they are not stored in it, they are file system details Windows keeps about the file. The owner changes automatically when the file is copied to another account or computer.
Does Windows fully remove metadata with Remove Properties and Personal Information?
Not completely. Research by Didier Stevens showed that the feature removes the metadata pointers but leaves the original values as orphaned data in the file, recoverable with a hex editor. It also skips XMP, IPTC, embedded thumbnail EXIF and camera maker notes. The Details tab looks empty, but the file may not be. For sensitive images, use a tool that rewrites the file, such as ExifTool, and verify the result.
Is the Date created field when the photo was taken?
No. Date created in the File section is a file system timestamp set when that copy of the file was written to the disk, so it changes when you copy or download the image. The actual capture time is stored separately as Date taken in the Origin section, which is embedded EXIF. If Date taken is blank, as it is on an image with no camera data, the file has no recorded capture time at all.
Do Snipping Tool screenshots contain image metadata?
Yes, but very little. A screenshot is not taken by a camera, so a Snipping Tool capture has no camera EXIF and no GPS location. It carries only basic embedded metadata like dimensions, bit depth and a color profile and sometimes a small tag identifying the tool. The more revealing details, your Windows username and computer name, appear in the File section, which is system information rather than embedded metadata, and those change when the file is copied.
Do images created in MS Paint contain metadata?
Barely any. An image you draw and save in MS Paint has no camera EXIF and no GPS, because nothing was captured with a camera. Paint writes only minimal data such as dimensions, bit depth and a default resolution of 96 dpi, and it adds no author or location tags. A Paint-created image is one of the cleanest image files you can produce.
Do screenshots contain GPS or location data?
No. Screenshots do not contain GPS coordinates. A screenshot captures what is on your screen rather than a scene through a camera lens, so no location sensor is involved and no GPS tag is written. This is the main reason screenshots are safer to share than camera photos. They can still carry your username or computer name in the File section, which is system information, not embedded metadata.
Does opening and saving a photo in MS Paint remove its metadata?
Mostly yes. MS Paint does not preserve EXIF, so if you open a camera photo in Paint and save it, the camera data, GPS and other embedded metadata are dropped. This makes Paint a crude metadata remover. The catch is that saving a JPEG in Paint re-compresses the image and lowers its quality, so a dedicated tool like the Univik Metadata Remover or ExifTool is better when you want to strip metadata without losing quality.
Conclusion
The Details tab looks like one block of metadata, but it is really three. Embedded metadata is the genuine article, it lives in the file, follows it everywhere and can be removed. Built-in properties also live in the file but cannot be removed, because they define the image. System information is not in the file at all, it belongs to the computer the file is sitting on, and it rewrites itself the moment the file moves.
Once you see those three buckets, the whole window makes sense. You know which fields leak when you share a picture, which ones you can clean and which ones were never yours to remove. And you know not to trust an empty Details tab as proof that a file is truly clean.