Whenever you are viewing an image on a web page, you might want to see the information and properties behind the image. An image may have information ranging from image size to EXIF data. There are many reasons you might want to see a web image’s information. If you are a developer, it may be necessary for you to know the size and dimension of a image file used somewhere, or the EXIF meta data an image may come in handy if you are a photographer. Whatever your purpose is, the first step is to easily extract the information associated with the image file.

Chrome right-click image properties

Usual Ineffective Methods

Traditionally, most of us do is, download the entire image locally and use a photo viewer/editor software to view image size, resolution, meta data etc. This local method doesn’t give you the image’s source URL, Alt tag text, etc. Another method many of us familiar with is right-clicking on the image and choose “Inspect element” or “View Source Code” from the browser’s context menu. This brings up the source codes used to insert the said image. For most of us, checking the source code is a lot confusing as it consists of several codes and strings. Also it doesn’t necessarily shows you the image’s all properties. Furthermore, every browser shows and handles it differently. So none of these methods are convenient to see image properties on a browser unless you are give a media file properties viewer option.

About Chrome Extension “Image Properties Context Menu”

Image Properties Context Menu is a very simple Chrome extension that will add an entry named “Image Properties” right into your Chrome browser’s context menu. That means, when you are viewing an image and want to see the properties of the image, just right-click on the image and click Image Properties from the menu, it will show you the available information of the image in a small window. Firefox has similar kind of built-in feature where you have an option named View Image Info in Firefox context menu when you right-click on an image. This presents useful info about the media file on Firefox. Those who have been missing this Firefox feature on Chrome, “Image Properties Context Menu” should give them a big hope.

Bonus: Shorten URLs right from Chrome context menu.

How to View Image Properties Right from Chrome’s Right-Click Menu

  1. Install Image Properties Context Menu extension from Chrome Web Store.
  2. Visit the webpage that has the image you want to see the properties of. Simply right-click on the image and choose Image Properties.
    Right click on an image and choose Image Properties
  3. You will instantly be presented with a pop-up window which will show the available information of the image.
    Image Properties showing directly in Chrome
  4. That’s it! There’s a resizing bar which you can use to resize the image if is’s too big.

Information you get with this Image Properties Viewer:

  • Location: The web page’s address where the image was displayed.
  • Source: The image file’s actual direct location.
  • Dimension: Resolution of the image.
  • Alt text: Alt text is the alternative text placed in alt=”<alt text>” in the image’s source code. Browsers show this text if it cannot load the image.
  • Data URI: Learn more about Data URI.
  • File Size: The image file’s size.
  • MIME type: Learn more about Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.
  • EXIF: It stands for Exchangeable image file format. For simple understanding, it’s a collection of meta data that stored in an image. This data includes but not limited to tags stored by digital cameras, smartphone, etc. Following is an example of EXIF data shown for an image:
    Exif data

Troubleshooting

  1. Image Properties showing smaller image than the Original: This most likely happens when you right-click on a resized thumbnail or preview of the original image. Before using Image Properties, try to click on the actual image to get/load it’s full size.
  2. No EXIF data: This is because the image file you are checking properties has no EXIF data at all. Many web services remove EXIF data to reduce image file size.

Verdict

Viewing image properties right from Chrome context menu was never been easier as this. Thanks to the free Chrome extension Image Properties Context Menu for making it convenient to see image information with one click from the web page.

 

 

Author: 

Jaber is a Programmer and Tech Enthusiast Geek from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the founder and Chief-Editor of TechGainer. While he is away from his keyboard, either he's fishing or messing with wildlife. In case, you can contact him at rijans[at]techgainer[dot]com.