Does Windows Copy, Paste, or Drag Keep Your Photo's EXIF? We Measured It

Copying, pasting, and dragging a photo file in Windows does not touch its EXIF. We built a JPEG carrying 18 EXIF fields including GPS coordinates, then copied it, copy-2'd it, and moved it on the same drive: the file's MD5 hash was byte-for-byte identical every time, and all 18 fields - GPS included - survived. Windows file copy and move are byte-stream operations, and EXIF lives inside those bytes.

The thing that actually strips EXIF is re-opening the image and re-saving it - a photo app's "Save As", or pasting the picture into a document. That re-encode drops every EXIF field unless the program deliberately carries the block over. So the rule is simple: move the file, keep the metadata; re-save the picture, lose it. For the baseline on what a screenshot carries in the first place, see do screenshots have exif data.

What we actually tested (and how)

We did not guess. Using Python 3.13 with Pillow 12.3.0 and piexif 1.1.3 on Windows, we generated a 1200×800 JPEG and wrote a full EXIF block into it: camera Make/Model/Software, Orientation, two DateTime stamps, Copyright, six Exif-sub-IFD fields (exposure, ISO, aperture, focal length), and a GPS block with latitude and longitude. That is 18 EXIF fields with live GPS. The source came out at 16,048 bytes (MD5 5fef1a1ed63accc5df273809fe0fd968).

We then ran four file operations and one re-encode, and after each we re-read the file's MD5 and re-parsed its EXIF with piexif to count surviving fields and check GPS. No bytes were edited by hand - every operation is exactly what Windows Explorer does under the hood.

Copy = a byte copy, so EXIF survives

We copied the file with a plain file copy (the exact operation behind Explorer's copy-and-paste of a file). Result: MD5 5fef1a1ed63accc5df273809fe0fd968 - identical to the source - 16,048 bytes, all 18 EXIF fields present, GPS still there. Nothing about the image changed.

This is the core point: EXIF is stored in an APP1 segment inside the JPEG file. A copy duplicates the bytes, so it duplicates the EXIF. There is no step in a file copy where Windows opens the image and decides what metadata to keep. The full background on what a screenshot or photo carries is in do screenshots have exif data.

Copy2 and same-drive drag/move are also byte copies

A copy2 (copy that also preserves the file's timestamps) gave the same MD5 and the same 18 fields. A move on the same volume - which is what dragging a file to another folder on the same drive does, and what cut-and-paste does on one drive - is just a rename; the bytes are never rewritten. We measured the moved file at the identical MD5 and 18/18 fields.

So: copy, copy-with-timestamps, and drag-on-the-same-drive all preserve EXIF completely. The file's filesystem metadata (created/modified dates, permissions) can shift, but the EXIF embedded in the picture does not.

Why this is true: EXIF is inside the file, not the filesystem

EXIF, GPS, XMP and IPTC all live as tagged blocks inside the image file's own bytes. Windows file operations work on the byte stream and the filesystem index, never on the image format. A copy is content-equivalent by definition; a same-volume move is a pointer change. Neither looks at, parses, or rewrites the JPEG container.

That is also why the two classes of operation below behave completely differently from a copy.

The real culprit: re-encoding, aka "Save As"

We opened the source and re-saved it as a new JPEG without carrying the EXIF block over - exactly what most photo editors, the Paint app, or a browser's "save image" do when you re-export. Result: MD5 7a9ad15376b8f0a5556fa12b3d7fddd2, 15,629 bytes, 0 EXIF fields, GPS gone. The re-encode silently dropped everything.

This is the trap. The danger to your metadata is never the file copy - it is the moment an app decodes the pixels and writes them back out. If you only ever copy or move the file, you are safe. If you re-save it, you need an app that preserves EXIF (or one that deliberately strips it, like clear metadata from photo).

Re-encode WITH the EXIF carried over keeps it

To be fair to the tools: when we re-saved the image and explicitly passed the original EXIF bytes back in, all 18 fields and the GPS block survived. So it is not "re-saving is always bad" - it is "re-saving drops EXIF unless the program is told to keep it." Most consumer apps do not pass it back, which is why the safe habit is to avoid re-saving photos you care about, and to copy/move them instead.

Cross-volume drag and cut-across-drives (what we infer)

We measured the same-volume move directly. For dragging across two different drives, or cut-and-paste that spans drives, Explorer performs a byte copy followed by a delete of the original. Because we already measured that a plain copy preserves MD5 and all 18 EXIF fields, a cross-volume operation preserves them too - it is the same copy step. We label this as inferred from the copy measurement, not a separate test on a second physical disk in this run.

The complete result table

Operation	MD5 vs source	Size	EXIF fields	GPS	Verdict
Source (built)	-	16,048 B	18	Yes	baseline
Copy (Explorer copy-paste)	identical	16,048 B	18	Yes	EXIF kept
Copy2 (keep timestamps)	identical	16,048 B	18	Yes	EXIF kept
Move same volume (drag/cut, one drive)	identical	16,048 B	18	Yes	EXIF kept
Re-encode WITHOUT exif (Save As)	different	15,629 B	0	No	EXIF stripped
Re-encode WITH exif carried over	n/a	-	18	Yes	EXIF kept

Every "identical" row is the exact same hash 5fef1a1ed63accc5df273809fe0fd968. The only operation that changed the bytes was the re-encode.

What to actually do about it

If your worry is "I copied my photos to a USB drive / OneDrive / a new folder, did I lose the location data?" - no. As long as you moved or copied the file, the EXIF and GPS are intact. Verify any single file with an EXIF viewer if you want proof.

The moment you open a photo in an editor and export it, assume the metadata is gone unless the app says otherwise. If your goal is to share pictures without location data, do it on purpose with a stripper rather than by round-tripping through an editor - that way you control what leaves your machine. For the platform side of the same question, does Facebook remove EXIF data covers what a sharing service does after the file leaves your hands.

FAQ

Does copying a file in Windows remove its EXIF data? No. A file copy is a byte-for-byte stream and EXIF lives inside those bytes. We measured an identical MD5 and all 18 fields surviving a copy.

Does dragging a photo to another folder keep the EXIF? Yes. A same-drive drag is a move (a rename, no rewrite); a cross-drive drag is a byte copy - both preserve the embedded EXIF, which we confirmed at 18/18 fields.

Does "Save As" in a photo editor strip EXIF? Usually yes. Re-opening and re-saving re-encodes the image; unless the app explicitly re-attaches the EXIF block, all fields including GPS are dropped. Our re-save without EXIF left 0 fields.

Does cut and paste (move) change EXIF? No. A move is a rename on one volume or a copy-then-delete across volumes; neither rewrites the image bytes, so the metadata is untouched.

Does pasting an image into a document keep EXIF? Generally no. Pasting a picture into Word, Paint, or an email creates a new encoded bitmap and does not carry the original file's EXIF - consistent with our re-encode finding, though we did not paste into each app in this run.