TL;DR: HEIC stores more metadata than JPEG, and the gap is structural rather than incidental. JPEG is a single-image format that bolts metadata onto the file as marker segments — EXIF and XMP in APP1, IPTC in APP13 — with EXIF capped at roughly 64 KB. HEIC is a container built on ISOBMFF, the same box structure as an MP4, so it holds the same EXIF, XMP and IPTC blocks plus depth maps, HDR gain maps, multiple images, Live Photo pairings and per-image properties, each stored as a separate item. Crucially, the privacy-sensitive fields — GPS coordinates, capture timestamp, device model — are identical in both formats. Choosing JPEG over HEIC trims the exotic data but keeps the location tag. The only reliable way to remove either is to strip the file before you share it.
Which format stores more metadata, HEIC or JPEG?
HEIC does, and the reason is architectural. JPEG was designed in the early 1990s as a single compressed image with a few optional headers tacked on. HEIC, by contrast, is a modern container that can hold many things at once — several images, depth information, motion, and metadata — all indexed inside one file. So when you ask which format "stores more metadata," the honest answer is that HEIC has more places to put it and more kinds of it.
But there is a catch that matters far more than the headline. The single most sensitive piece of metadata in a typical phone photo — the GPS coordinate marking exactly where you stood — is stored the same way, in the same EXIF block, in both formats. HEIC's advantage in capacity does not make it uniquely dangerous, and JPEG's simplicity does not make it safe. To see why, it helps to look at how each format actually carries its metadata.
How JPEG packs metadata into marker segments
A JPEG file is a stream of segments, each introduced by a two-byte marker. Most metadata rides in the application segments, labelled APP0 through APP15. EXIF — the camera settings, timestamp, device make and model, and GPS coordinates — lives in an APP1 segment that opens with the bytes Exif\0\0. XMP, Adobe's metadata format, sits in a second APP1 segment identified by the namespace header http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/. IPTC fields, the captions and copyright data used in publishing, are tucked into an APP13 segment inside a Photoshop Image Resource block. A colour profile takes APP2, and a free-text comment can sit in a COM segment.
The defining constraint is size. A single JPEG marker segment cannot exceed 65,533 bytes of payload, so all of a photo's EXIF — including the embedded thumbnail that cameras tuck inside it — has to fit inside roughly 64 KB. When XMP outgrows that ceiling, it gets split into a main packet and an "ExtendedXMP" portion spread across several APP1 segments; oversized IPTC similarly splits across multiple APP13 segments. It works, but it is a patchwork. JPEG holds EXIF, XMP and IPTC competently and little else. If you want the precise breakdown of those three standards, we wrote a full comparison of IPTC vs EXIF vs XMP, and a primer on what EXIF data actually is. Adobe maintains the XMP specification as an open ISO standard if you want the source.
How HEIC stores metadata as items in a container
HEIC is the Apple-flavoured name for HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format standardised as ISO/IEC 23008-12. HEIF is built on the ISO Base Media File Format — the same box-based structure that underpins MP4 and MOV video. Instead of a linear stream of markers, the file is a tree of "boxes," each tagged with a four-character code.
Metadata lives in a meta box that works like a small filing system. An item information box (iinf) lists everything the file contains, and an item location box (iloc) acts as an index, mapping each item to its byte offset. EXIF is stored as its own Exif item; XMP is stored as a mime item. Because these are referenced rather than crammed into a fixed-size header, HEIC has no 64 KB EXIF ceiling — metadata can be as large as it needs to be. HEIF also shares image properties through an item property container, splitting them into descriptive properties (like the colour profile) and transformative ones (rotation, crop, clean aperture) that are recorded as instructions rather than baked into the pixels. This is the format your iPhone has used by default since iOS 11, as Apple documents in its guide to using HEIF and HEVC media.
Photo by Lisa from Pexels on Pexels.
What extra data HEIC carries that JPEG simply can't
This is where the capacity gap becomes concrete. Because HEIC is a container, a single file can hold things a JPEG has no slot for. It can store multiple full images — the frames of a burst, or the still that anchors a Live Photo, which is paired with a short MOV clip. It can carry a depth map, the per-pixel distance information that powers Portrait mode's background blur. It can hold an HDR gain map, the auxiliary layer that tells a display how to brighten highlights. It can include alpha and auxiliary images, embedded thumbnails, and image sequences, each registered as its own item in that iinf index.
On an iPhone, a Portrait-mode HEIC therefore bundles the visible photo, a depth map, a segmentation matte, and the usual EXIF — including Apple's proprietary MakerNote — into one file. A JPEG of the same scene throws all of that away and keeps only the flattened image plus its EXIF and XMP. So HEIC genuinely stores more metadata: more standards, more auxiliary layers, and no size cap on any of them. We covered the broader picture of what your phone embeds in our breakdown of the hidden metadata in iPhone photos, and the video side in what metadata iPhone videos store.
So is HEIC worse for privacy than JPEG?
Not in the way the capacity numbers suggest. Most of HEIC's extra payload is technical, not personal. A depth map and a gain map describe the optics of a shot, not where you live. They can reveal context — a Live Photo's audio and motion capture a few seconds before and after the frame — but they are not the headline risk.
The headline risk is the GPS coordinate, and that field is byte-for-byte the same EXIF data in both formats. If location services were enabled when you pressed the shutter, your photo carries a latitude and longitude accurate to a few metres, whether it is saved as HEIC or JPEG. We traced exactly how that tag gets written in how GPS coordinates end up embedded in photos. The practical implication trips people up constantly: switching your iPhone to "Most Compatible" under Settings → Camera → Formats makes it shoot JPEG instead of HEIC, but it does not strip your location. It changes the container, not the contents. You get a simpler file with the same coordinate inside.
Does converting HEIC to JPEG remove metadata?
No — and this is the most common misconception we see. When you convert a HEIC to a JPEG, the converter is built to preserve your metadata, not delete it. EXIF copies straight across, and most tools carry XMP over as well, so the GPS coordinate, timestamp and device model survive the conversion intact. What a conversion does tend to drop is the HEIC-only data the JPEG container can't represent: the depth map, the gain map, the extra images. In other words, conversion discards the harmless technical layers and keeps the one field you most likely wanted gone.
So "I'll just convert it to JPEG to be safe" is a false comfort. You end up with a more compatible file and the same location tag. If the goal is privacy rather than compatibility, conversion is not the tool for the job. Removal is.
Photo by Jana Al Mubaslat on Pexels.
How to remove metadata from HEIC and JPEG
The reliable approach is the same for both formats: strip the metadata explicitly before the file leaves your hands. Run the photo through Metadata Cleaner and it removes the EXIF block, the GPS coordinates, the device model and timestamps, the IPTC and XMP fields, and the embedded thumbnail — for HEIC and JPEG alike. Because the cleaning happens locally in your browser, the original never uploads anywhere; only the scrubbed copy exists to be shared. The step-by-step is in the box above, and our general walkthrough on how to strip EXIF data from a photo covers the same process across Mac, Windows and iPhone.
Two honest limits are worth stating, because they apply no matter which format you use. First, stripping metadata does nothing to the pixels. If a recognizable street sign, storefront or skyline is visible in the frame, removing EXIF won't hide where the photo was taken — visual geolocation works on what the image shows, not on its tags. Second, removal only helps if you do it before sharing. Cleaning a file after you've already uploaded the original to a platform does not pull the metadata back; the service received your full file at upload. The order of operations is the whole game: clean first, share second.
The bottom line
HEIC stores more metadata than JPEG. As an ISOBMFF container it holds the same EXIF, XMP and IPTC that JPEG does, with no 64 KB ceiling, and adds depth maps, gain maps, Live Photo pairings, multiple images and per-image properties that JPEG's marker-segment structure simply cannot represent. If you are counting fields and formats, HEIC wins the capacity contest decisively.
But capacity is not the same as exposure. The data that identifies you and your location — GPS, timestamp, device — is the identical EXIF in both formats, which means format choice is a decision about compression and capability, not privacy. Shooting JPEG instead of HEIC, or converting one to the other, leaves your coordinates exactly where they were. The only thing that removes them is removing them.
Try Metadata Cleaner free — strip EXIF, GPS, IPTC and XMP from any HEIC or JPEG photo, locally in your browser, before it ever reaches an upload.