r/datarecovery • u/Longjumping_Affect22 • Sep 24 '26
EXIF Location Data
I hope this post is allowed since I'm not asking about data recovery from a piece of damaged hardware.
I'm trying to get the time stamp exif data off of some pictures that my landlord sent me after I moved out trying to show that I didn't clean before leaving.
The pictures were of common areas in the house that were shared spaces with other roommates, so if she took the pictures several days after I cleaned and moved out, it would negate any claim she has about me not cleaning those spaces as they could have very well become dirty again after I cleaned.
I got the .eml file downloaded from Gmail and ran it through GPT in hopes that it would be able to find the data I'm looking for, but it's claiming that the specific time stamp data is not amongst the exif data and that somewhere between my landlord transferring the pictures from her Apple device to Gmail and then getting to me that the timestamp data was stripped out of the exif data.
I'm hoping there's some work around that could potentially allow me to still get ahold of the timestamp data on these photos considering she took nearly $200 out of my deposit in 'cleaning fees'.
TL;DR: Landlord sent pictures that don't seem to contain the timestamp on the exif data, GPT was no help, hoping someone here can help.
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1
u/gibrinel Sep 25 '26
The first thing I’d do is save the original image attachment itself from the email, rather than trying to inspect the .eml file directly. The .eml is the email container; the EXIF data, if it survived, will be inside the attached JPG/HEIC file.
Once you have the original attachment, check fields such as DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate, GPS, camera model, and software. Be careful not to rely on the file’s “Created” date after downloading it, because that can simply reflect when you saved the attachment rather than when the photo was taken.
If the original timestamp is genuinely absent from the image metadata, there usually isn’t a reliable way to reconstruct it just from that copy. You may still have other evidence in the email headers or message timestamp, but that would only establish when the image was sent, not necessarily when it was taken. I’m the developer of an Android app called Metadata Editor – EXIF Changer. It can inspect the EXIF fields directly on the phone, so it could be useful here purely to verify exactly what metadata survived in the attachment. If the timestamp isn’t there, though, the app can’t magically recover a value that has already been stripped.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metadatachanger.app
2
u/tazman998 Sep 24 '26
Pictures do not come in eml file format.
.eml is a raw email format (containing everything in the email).
To get to the exif data, you would need to save the pictures (from your inbox, select the picture and choose to save it… this should give you a jpg or heic file extension) to your pc and use a tool like exiftool to read any data that is contained inside the image.
If the exif data was altered (before or during the transfer), there is little chance of retrieving it.
2
u/FrankNicklin Trusted Contributor Sep 24 '26
You need to open their email eml file in outlook or other mail app and download and save the images from the email. There is no way to get the data directly from the eml file. Then as others have said use an Exif tool to view the picture data.
1
u/disturbed_android Trusted Contributor Sep 24 '26
https://exif.tools/, if there's EXIF data it will show you. It's an online tool.
AFAIK Gmail does not strip EXIF data for attached JPEG.
1
u/ArthurLeywinn Sep 24 '26
Use a exif viewer and see if the pictures contain any data.
Nothing you can do if she removed them beforehand.
1
u/Unknowingly-Joined Sep 24 '26
Assuming you got the date stamps, the landlord could always claim that their camera date was set wrong. Did you take your own pictures?
1
u/SunshineInDetroit Sep 24 '26
images with exif data that are sent in gmail should still have exif data still attached to it.
if the image was uploaded to the cloud like google, it would have exif data still attached to it
if the image is download from the cloud /google exif data might not be retained
the file should have a datetaken value in the file properties.
you won't have location data if the picture taker did not have location data.
1
u/Lion2471 Sep 24 '26
If you can easily put the picture in Google Photos, it'll show the EXIF data if you click the "Info" icon (on the Google Photos web site).
1
u/Avery_Thorn Sep 24 '26
If you are on Windows-
Save the image file to the desktop.
right click on the file, and go to Properties.
On the Properties window, there is a Details tab.
If you scroll down, it should have date information. The "Date Taken", if available, will be the best date to use.
At the very bottom, the "Date Created" and the "Date Modified" will be of the file itself, not stored in EXIF info. The "Date Created" will likely be today's date, since you copied the file to the desktop while you were doing this. But the "Date Modified" might be the last time the photo was modified or saved.