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Do Screenshots Have Metadata? iPhone and Mac Facts

Name: Pizazoo
Author: Pizazoo

Yes, but far less than photos: date, size, color profile and a Screenshot tag, usually no location. How to check it on iPhone and Mac, and how to strip it.

October 6, 20266 min read

Muhammed BasilFounder & maker of Pizazoo

Yes, screenshots have metadata, but far less than camera photos. An iPhone or Mac screenshot typically records when it was taken, its pixel dimensions, a color profile and a label that marks it as a screenshot. It normally has no GPS location, no camera model and no lens settings. The details below apply to iOS 26 and iOS 27 and to macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27.

We make Pizazoo, a screenshot organizer for Mac and iPhone. It comes up once near the end; nothing here requires it.

What metadata does a screenshot contain?

Field	iPhone screenshot	Mac screenshot
Date and time	Written into the file	In the file name ("Screenshot [date] at [time]") and the file's dates
Pixel dimensions and resolution	Yes	Yes
Color profile	Yes (for example Display P3)	Yes
"Screenshot" label	Yes, in the EXIF UserComment field	Yes, in the EXIF UserComment field
macOS screen capture tags	No	Yes: full-screen, window or selection capture, and where on screen
GPS location	Not normally	Not normally
Camera make, model and lens	No	No

On iPhone, a published ExifTool readout of a screenshot shows exactly that short list: the capture date and time, orientation, resolution, a "Screenshot" description and user comment, and a Display P3 color profile, with no device model and no GPS fields (ExifTool output on GitHub). The file doesn't name your iPhone model, though its pixel dimensions match your screen size.

On a Mac, the screenshot tool sets the EXIF UserComment to "Screenshot" (Eclectic Light), and Apple's documentation says files are named with the date and time (Apple). macOS also tags each screenshot with Spotlight attributes: kMDItemIsScreenCapture, kMDItemScreenCaptureType ("display", "window" or "selection") and kMDItemScreenCaptureGlobalRect, the capture's position on screen (Eternal Storms Software). They're stored as extended attributes alongside the file, not in the image's EXIF data (Miguel Mota).

File format doesn't change the picture much. With HDR selected in Settings > General > Screen Capture, iPhone screenshots save as HEIF instead of PNG (Apple); on supported Macs with macOS Tahoe 26 or later, the Screenshot app's HDR option saves HEIF too (Apple). The readout above is from an HDR HEIF screenshot.

Does a screenshot show your location?

Not in its metadata, normally. Apple explains that location coordinates are embedded in photos and videos when Location Services is on for the Camera app, and that "location metadata in photos and videos can be collected only if your Camera app has access to Location Services" (Apple Personal Safety User Guide). A screenshot isn't taken with the Camera, which is why it doesn't get GPS coordinates. On a Mac you can confirm it in Preview, which grays out Tools > Show Location Info when an image has no location (Apple).

Two caveats:

A location can be added later. Photos lets you adjust the location of any item (Apple), and Apple notes that sharing includes "associated metadata, such as date and time, location, device, and captions" (Apple).
The pixels can give it away. A map, a weather widget, a delivery tracker or a street sign tells people where you are far more reliably than metadata.

So check rather than assume. It takes seconds.

How do you see a screenshot's metadata on iPhone?

Open the screenshot in Photos, then swipe up or tap the Info button. Depending on the item, Apple says the panel shows the device, the date and time, file details and where it was taken (Apple). Expect a short panel: when this view arrived in iOS 15, Popular Science noted that screenshots appear as "screenshot" with limited EXIF data (Popular Science).

If a location does appear, tap Adjust Location (under Adjust Info in iOS 27) and choose No Location (Apple Personal Safety).

How do you see a screenshot's metadata on a Mac?

Preview: open the screenshot and click the Info button in the toolbar to open the Inspector; its More Info section shows image details in different formats (Apple). Choose Tools > Show Location Info to check for GPS.
Finder: select the file and choose File > Get Info, or press Command-I (Apple).
Photos for Mac: select the screenshot and press Command-I (Apple).
Terminal: mdls prints every Spotlight attribute for a file (SS64). Run mdls -name kMDItemIsScreenCapture -name kMDItemScreenCaptureType followed by the file path to see whether macOS marked it as a screenshot and how it was captured. xattr -l lists the extended attributes themselves.

Those attributes are why a Finder search for kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 finds screenshots even after you rename them (OSXDaily). Our guide to deleting screenshots on Mac uses that trick.

How do you remove metadata from a screenshot before sharing?

Start with location, the field that matters most:

iPhone, iOS 26: tap Share, tap Options at the top of the share sheet, and turn off Location. "Location Not Included" then appears above the Options button (Apple Personal Safety, Apple: iOS 26 guide).
iPhone, iOS 27: Apple's iOS 27 guide lists Keywords, the file format and All Photos Data under Options, with no Location switch. If you don't see one, remove the location with Adjust Location first.
Either version: leave All Photos Data off. It shares "the original file with edit history and metadata" (Apple), so a redaction made in Photos may not hold.
Photos for Mac: select the items, then choose Image > Location > Hide Location (Apple Personal Safety).

To strip everything else:

Shortcuts (iPhone, iPad and Mac): run the image through the Convert Image action with Preserve Metadata turned off, and the output is a copy without metadata. Privacy Guides shows how to put this in the share sheet, and notes it's "not as comprehensive" as dedicated tools such as ExifTool (Privacy Guides).
ExifTool (Mac Terminal): exiftool -all= file.png deletes all meta information. By default ExifTool keeps the untouched original with _original added to its name (ExifTool documentation).
Extended attributes (Mac): xattr -c file.png clears them, including the screen capture tags (SS64).
Re-saving the blunt way: view the image full screen and take a new screenshot of it. The new file carries only fresh screenshot metadata, at some cost in sharpness.

Which matters more: metadata or what's in the screenshot?

What's in the picture, almost every time. Screenshot metadata says little beyond "a screenshot, taken at this time, at this size." The pixels can show your name and email in an app header, account and order numbers, a home address in a delivery app, a QR code that still works, other people's messages, and the notification banners that happened to arrive.

Cover those with opaque boxes, not blur: security firm Bishop Fox says "the only way to do it securely is to use black bars" (Bishop Fox). Step-by-step guides: redact screenshots on Mac, blur a screenshot on iPhone, blur a QR code and bug report screenshots.

Where does Pizazoo fit?

We make Pizazoo. It organizes the screenshots on your Mac and iPhone, with text recognition and categorization running on the device, no Pizazoo server and no account. For the part that matters most, the visible content, the Mac markup editor has redact, blur and pixelate tools plus auto-redaction of personal info and QR codes, and the iPhone and iPad app can blur or black out an area. Download Pizazoo for Mac or get it on iPhone.