It’s something we work with at Backblaze every day.

Whenever you move a file-through email, into or out of a sync or cloud storage service, or to another device-you’re likely altering its metadata.

“It” is “metadata” and it’s something everyone works with, even if they don’t know it. But anyone else can access the same data and enter it directly into Google Maps to discover exactly where that picture was taken! Not quite as useful.īut if you know what this hidden information is-and how to use it-it can be incredibly helpful in diagnosing problems with files, organizing or protecting data, and even removing information you don’t want revealed! If you don’t, it can be a huge annoyance, and potentially even dangerous. For example, the image in the header reveals latitude and longitude details in an iPhone photo that you could use to organize the photo and find others taken in the same place. The files you use every day on your Mac or PC, whether at home or at work, carry around a slew of hidden data that can be incredibly useful to you… or problematically revealing to others.

Exiftool mac os tags