Remove EXIF data from photos

What your photos say about you

Every photo taken with a phone or camera is stored with a block of hidden information called EXIF data. It usually includes the make and model of the device, the exact date and time, the camera settings and, if location is switched on, the GPS coordinates of where you were standing, often accurate to a few meters. Post a photo taken at home and, without meaning to, you may also be handing over your address.

Why removing it matters

Some platforms strip location from the copy they display publicly, but policies differ and change, and email, cloud links, forums and messaging apps often pass the original file along untouched. Selling something online, sending a picture to a stranger, publishing a photo of a child or sharing an image from your home are all moments when it is worth sending a clean copy.

More than EXIF

Location and camera details are only part of it. Photos can also carry XMP and IPTC records written by editing programs, comments, text notes in PNG files, an embedded thumbnail that can even show the picture before it was cropped, and extra data appended after the end of the image. This tool looks for all of those, tells you what it found and removes it. It also removes Content Credentials, the provenance data some cameras and editors now add, so keep the original if you need that record.

Without damaging the picture

Many "metadata removers" simply save the image again, which recompresses it and lowers its quality. For JPG, PNG and WebP, this tool instead deletes only the metadata blocks and copies everything else byte for byte, so the pixels are identical to the original. Your color profile is kept, and if the photo depends on a rotation flag to display upright, a minimal flag with nothing but the rotation is preserved so it does not end up sideways.

Proof, not just a promise

After cleaning, the tool analyzes the new file again and reports whether any metadata remains. Nothing leaves your device at any point, which matters here: uploading a photo to a website in order to remove its location would defeat the purpose.

What it cannot do

Removing metadata does not hide what the picture itself shows, such as a street sign, a house number, a reflection or a face. It also does not change the file name, which can contain a date or a person's name. If you need to switch it off at the source, most phones let you disable location tagging in the camera settings.