The Full Form of EXIF is‍ Exchangeable image file format.

Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) is metadata contained in an image file, and although it varies among devices, it can provide valuable information such as the make and model of the camera that took the image of a system, as well as whether an image was altered with a graphics program. EXIF data also often will have a date and timestamp of when the image was taken or altered. There are several EXIF formats; therefore, the data can vary slightly. Also be aware that not all devices will propagate all the data.

The exchangeable image file format (EXIF) is a standard for embedding technical metadata in image files that many camera manufacturers use and many image-processing programs support. EXIF metadata can be embedded in TIFF and JPEG images. Table 6.6 shows a metadata record extracted from a JPEG image produced by a digital camera: it includes the exposure, resolution, focal length, and whether flash was used. The record shows that the GIMP image-editing program has been used to process the file, which illustrates that embedded metadata expressed in EXIF is only as accurate as the last application that saved the file and may have been altered by several programs before it is added to your digital library. EXIF metadata can include a thumbnail image—in this case the thumbnail is a 196 × 147 pixel JPEG that occupies 3.6 KB, compared with the original 2,048 × 1,536 (262 KB) image. Including the thumbnail, the metadata itself occupies 4.4 KB.