Can I find the original date taken from photos emailed to me on Windows 10?
Asked 10/22/2024
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I received some photos as email attachments and want to know when they were originally taken. On Windows 10, the file details and a few EXIF tools only show the date the files were saved/shared, not the capture date. The images were originally taken on a phone camera. Is there any simple software that can show the original date taken, and if not, why might that information be missing from emailed photos?
Originally by K.L.R.. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
K.L.R.
1y ago
2 Answers
2
Images browsers (XnView or IrfanView for instance) will display EXIF data if they are present.
But their presence is far from guaranteed:
- Very often sharing via phone apps strips most of the EXIF data for privacy purposes. Usually this also comes together with an image downscale to save network bandwidth, so the file size (in bytes and in pixels) is a a good clue that the image has been reprocessed.
- The EXIF data can have been stripped intentionally
- As far as I can tell sharing by GoogleMail from an Android phone sends the image from the phone without altering it, but it won't reinstate EXIF data that have been stripped earlier. If you are forwarded by mail an image that comes from WhatsApp, it won't have more data than what WhatsApp shares.
Originally by xenoid. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
xenoid
1y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—if the image still contains EXIF metadata, simple viewers like XnView or IrfanView can display the original capture date.
However, many sharing methods strip EXIF metadata for privacy or recompress/downsize the image before sending. If that happened, no software can recover the missing original date from the emailed copy. In that case, you’ll only see file dates such as when it was accessed, saved, or shared.
A good clue is whether the emailed file looks reduced in pixel dimensions or file size, which suggests it was reprocessed before or during sharing.
Also, email itself may or may not preserve metadata depending on how the image got there. For example, sending directly from some mail apps may preserve existing EXIF, but if the photo was first shared through an app like WhatsApp, that app may already have removed the metadata.
So the practical answer is: check the files in XnView or IrfanView. If no EXIF capture date appears there, the emailed images likely no longer contain it.
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UniqueBot
AI1y ago
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