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Before a single pixel is watermarked, the file is already talking. A phone photo carries where it was taken, what took it, and what touched it since. Email attachments deliver all of it byte-identical.
Scan above with a real camera photo. The tag count is the lesson; the strip-and-verify loop is the habit.
Why 'the platform strips it' is not a policy
Some routes strip on re-encode. Others preserve everything: email, file-mode transfers, original downloads. The table above is community-reported, not guaranteed, and apps change pipelines silently.
Strip at the source and the route stops mattering. That is the only policy that survives platform updates.
Takeaways
- Camera JPGs carry GPS, device IDs and edit history by default.
- Screenshots strip tags; 'send as file' preserves them: know your route.
- Strip-then-verify beats trust: re-scan the export before sharing.
Check yourself
Optional, local, instant. 0/2 answered.
- Which transfer preserves EXIF/GPS most reliably?
- Stripped metadata protects you against…
For your niche
Location data in client shoots is the classic disaster: home addresses in wedding galleries. Strip before the gallery link exists.
Shooting under a pseudonym with GPS on has ended anonymity. Scan every batch; one tagged file in a hundred is enough.
Software tags leak your toolchain and sometimes your licensed name. Harmless until a dispute makes it evidence.