Platform behaviour
Does LinkedIn remove EXIF data?
Yes, from the public copy
LinkedIn processes uploaded images and the public copy carries no EXIF.
What actually happens
- Both post images and profile photos are re-encoded on upload.
- Documents and carousel PDFs are a separate path, and PDFs carry their own metadata — author, producer application, timestamps.
- LinkedIn content is professional and often indexed, so anything embedded is durable.
The part most guides skip
A PDF carousel is not an image upload. PDF metadata routinely contains the author name and the software licence holder, and it is not covered by image stripping.
This distinction matters more than the yes-or-no answer. "Strips EXIF" nearly always means "strips it from the copy other people can download". Your original file — coordinates, serial number, timestamp and all — was still transmitted, and it is still on their servers.
What to do instead
Clean the file before you upload it. It takes a second, it costs you no image quality here, and it removes the question entirely: if the metadata was never in the file you sent, no platform policy has to be trusted.
Remove metadata from your photo, or check what is in there first with the EXIF viewer.
Other platforms
- InstagramYes, from the public copy
- FacebookYes, from the public copy
- X (Twitter)Yes, from the public copy
- WhatsAppIt depends how you send it
- TelegramIt depends how you send it
- RedditYes, from the public copy
- DiscordIt depends how you send it
- PinterestYes, from the public copy
Platform behaviour changes without announcement. These notes reflect widely reproduced testing rather than official documentation, because most platforms do not publish this. Treat them as a guide, not a guarantee — which is itself the argument for stripping locally.