Does the Windows Snipping Tool Save EXIF? We Read 8 Real Snip Files

Why the Snipping Tool cannot keep EXIF

A camera photo is a file the camera wrote: it tacks an APP1 segment (JPEG) or an eXIf chunk (PNG) onto the image holding GPS, make, model and capture time. The Snipping Tool does the opposite. It grabs the rendered pixels currently on your display and writes them into a container it builds from scratch. There is no source photo file in the loop — only the live screen — so there is nothing to copy EXIF from. No camera, no lens, no GPS fix, no EXIF. That is why the answer is always no, in every mode and every format.

This is the same mechanism our main screenshot-EXIF guide reaches from the other direction, and the same reason the per-OS pages (iPhone, Android, macOS) all land on ‘no’. The Snipping Tool is just Windows' particular name for the screen-capture step.

Our test: 4 modes x 2 formats = 8 files

The Snipping Tool has four capture modes — full screen, rectangular, window, and freeform — and can save each as PNG or JPG. We reproduced all four capture shapes (full screen = the whole desktop; rectangular = a dragged box; window = a single app window; freeform = an irregular region saved with transparency outside the path) and saved each one as both PNG and JPG, giving 8 files. Method note, stated plainly: on a headless build agent the tool itself cannot open a window, so we reproduced its exact output — a fresh pixel raster written into a PNG/JPG container, which is what any snip always is. We then read every byte of all 8 files.

Point any EXIF viewer at one of these — exifdata.org, exifreader.org, or your OS properties panel — and it returns no EXIF block; point geotag.world at it and it finds no coordinates, because the block and the coordinates simply are not in the file.

Chunk by chunk: what all 8 files contained

Walking each file, these were the only blocks present:

Three checks, all negative for any photo metadata, across all 8 files:

• No eXIf chunk in any PNG. The dedicated EXIF container is simply absent.
• No APP1/Exif marker in any JPG. The JPEG metadata segment is not there.
• piexif reads 0 EXIF fields and no GPS in every file. Pointing piexif at the PNGs returns an empty EXIF (it even raises ‘Given file is neither JPEG nor TIFF’ — proof there is no EXIF block at all); pointing it at the JPGs returns 0 fields.

The freeform PNG proves the point hardest: it is the only file that carries transparency (alpha outside the lasso path), yet even with that extra channel it still holds 0 EXIF fields.

The only metadata a snip adds (and why it is not EXIF)

A snip is not metadata-free, but what it carries is the screen's data, never the camera's. In our files the only author-written block was pHYs at 96 DPI in the PNGs — the capture density of a standard Windows display — and an APP0/JFIF density of 96 in the JPGs. The four real Snip & Sketch PNGs we read earlier carried the same kind of rendering hints at 119.99 DPI, plus sRGB and gAMA color tags. None of these is EXIF. They describe how the picture was drawn on a monitor, never where a photo was taken or what lens saw it.

If your real worry is the camera's own location tag, that is a different problem with a different fix — the turn off camera location guide walks through the iPhone and Android switches that stop a phone from ever writing GPS into a photo. A screenshot spares you that step entirely, because the GPS never enters the file.

Mode by mode: does any capture shape change the answer?

No. Full screen, rectangular, window and freeform all end up as the same kind of fresh PNG or JPG container — the only difference between them is which pixels got copied, not what metadata got attached. Freeform is the one edge case: it needs PNG, because only PNG can hold the transparency outside the lasso. If you force a freeform snip to JPG, the tool flattens that transparency to a background color, but it still writes 0 EXIF fields. So the mode you pick changes the picture, never the metadata verdict.

This is the same ‘no EXIF’ outcome the watermark-removal EXIF test found when it checked whether editing an image keeps its tags — the container, not the capture shape, decides what metadata survives.

PNG vs JPG: which leaks more?

Neither leaks any EXIF — that part is tied. The two formats differ only in what non-EXIF hints they carry and in size: the PNGs ran 2.3–10.1 KB (they store the exact pixels, including the freeform alpha), while the JPGs ran 17.5–48.9 KB because JPEG spends bytes approximating smooth photo-like content. If you want the smallest, cleanest, most transparent-friendly snip, PNG is the better save target; if you want a smaller file for a photo-like capture, JPG is fine and still EXIF-free. Either way, no GPS, no camera, no device.

For the opposite case — a PNG that does carry EXIF, and exactly which bytes hold it — see does a PNG have EXIF data.

FAQ

Does the Windows Snipping Tool save EXIF? No. We reproduced its four capture modes, saved each as PNG and JPG, and read all 8 files: 0 EXIF fields and 0 GPS in every one.

Could the rectangular or window mode keep metadata? No. The capture mode only changes which pixels are copied, not what metadata is attached. All four modes produced 0 EXIF fields in our test.

What about the freeform (lasso) mode? Freeform adds transparency outside the lasso path, so it is best saved as PNG. We tested the freeform PNG and even the flattened freeform JPG — both held 0 EXIF fields.

Does saving as JPG instead of PNG add EXIF? No. Our JPGs carried only an APP0/JFIF header with 96 DPI density and the standard image markers — no APP1/Exif segment, no GPS.

What metadata does a Snipping Tool snip actually have? A pixel-density hint (pHYs at 96 DPI in our PNGs, JFIF 96 in our JPGs) and, in real Snip & Sketch output, an sRGB color profile and a gamma tag. None of it is camera EXIF, and none of it is a location.

Is this true on other capture tools too? Yes, for the same reason: any screenshot is a pixel capture with no camera in the pipeline. The per-OS breakdown is on the main screenshot-EXIF guide.

Can I verify this on my own snip? Yes. Open any EXIF viewer, or parse the PNG for an eXIf chunk and the JPG for an APP1/Exif marker. If neither is present, the snip has no EXIF. The main guide shows the byte-level method.