privacy · photo metadata
100% Free | No Sign-Up RequiredRemove Metadata from Photos
Read the hidden data inside a photo — GPS coordinates, camera model, serial number, timestamps — then strip it in one click. The image itself is never re-compressed, and the file never leaves your device.
Zero uploads. The photo is read and rewritten in this tab.
No account, no request, no server copy. The cleaned file is written straight to your downloads folder.
- transport
- 0 bytes
- quality
- unchanged
- process
- this browser
- audit
- view-source
input
local onlyLocal session — photos stay on this device.
Read in this tab 0 bytes transferred no server copy
Select Photos
Drop JPEG, PNG or WebP files here, or click to browse. One or many.
Press Enter to open the file picker. Photos are analysed on this device only and never uploaded.No photos selected yet — add one to see exactly what it reveals before you share it.
Cleaned copies download as name-clean.jpg. The originals on your disk are not modified or deleted.
direct answer
To remove metadata from a photo, strip the metadata blocks instead of re-saving the picture. This page reads the file on your device, drops the EXIF, XMP and IPTC blocks that carry GPS coordinates, camera make and model, serial number, timestamps and editing software, then writes a copy with the same compressed image data. JPEG, PNG and WebP are cleaned losslessly — quality does not change and nothing is uploaded.
how it works
See it, then strip it. Three steps.
The inspection and the removal both happen between your disk and your downloads folder.
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Step 1
Add the photo
Drop one file or a whole folder's worth. Each file is read into memory with the File API and parsed on the spot — the EXIF and XMP blocks are decoded in this tab, so there is no request to intercept.
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Step 2
Read what it reveals
Every card lists the fields recovered: GPS coordinates in decimal degrees, camera make and model, body serial, capture date and time to the second, software version, owner name. If the photo has a location, it is flagged before you decide anything.
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Step 3
Clean and download
The tool removes the metadata segments from the file container and copies the image data through untouched. The cleaned file downloads as
name-clean.jpg, preserves its orientation and colour profile, and normally weighs a little less than the original.
field notes
What metadata is stored in a photo?
A photo file is two things stacked together: the picture, and a block of text about the picture. That text is EXIF — Exchangeable Image File Format — and on a phone photo it is usually more revealing than the image itself. GPS coordinates are stored as three rational numbers (degrees, minutes, seconds) with a reference for north or south and east or west; a phone with a clear sky view records a position accurate to a few metres. The timestamp is recorded to the second, which is enough to place a person at a location at a specific time.
| Field | What it typically says | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| GPS latitude / longitude | 51.5074 N, 0.1278 W — usually to five or more decimal places | Pins the photo to a street, a building, sometimes a room |
| DateTimeOriginal | 2026:09:14 18:42:07 | Places you somewhere at a moment, and links photos into a timeline |
| Make / Model | Apple iPhone 15 Pro, Google Pixel 9 | Narrows down who took it when combined with a social profile |
| BodySerialNumber | A unique string per camera body | Ties two "anonymous" photos to the same device |
| Artist / OwnerName | A name typed into camera settings | Direct identification, often left over from a work device |
| Software | Adobe Lightroom 13.2, iOS 18.1 | Reveals editing history and device version |
| Embedded thumbnail | A small copy of the original frame | Survives some cropping and blurring applied to the main image |
| XMP packet | Editing history, keywords, AI provenance, C2PA credentials | Can carry the original prompt, tool chain or creator ID |
| IPTC | Captions, credit lines, copyright notices | Identifies the photographer even when the image is reposted |
Why photo metadata is a privacy problem
Nobody reads the file. That is the whole risk. A photo posted to a marketplace, a forum, a job application or a group chat looks like a picture of a sofa; the file underneath says taken at home, 18:42, on this device. The classic failures are well known: second-hand listings that geolocate the seller's house, photos posted in a dispute that carry a timestamp contradicting the story, and camera serial numbers that link separate accounts to one person.
There is a second, quieter problem: the embedded thumbnail. Some tools and old editors leave a small JPEG preview of the original frame inside the file. If you cropped a face, a document or a house number out of the visible image, that crop can still exist in the thumbnail. Stripping the whole EXIF block removes it.
For a business, the same data is a compliance question. Photos uploaded by customers carry location and device identifiers into your storage, and under GDPR-style rules that is personal data you are now processing. Removing it at upload is easier to defend than explaining later why the marketing folder knows where every customer lives.
How to remove metadata from a photo without losing quality
The method matters. There are three common approaches, and only one of them leaves the image untouched:
| Method | What happens to the pixels | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Strip the metadata blocks (this tool) | Copied byte for byte, never decoded | Identical image, smaller file, all EXIF, XMP and IPTC gone |
| Screenshot or re-save in an editor | Re-encoded by a lossy codec | Metadata gone, but sharpness and colour degrade, and resolution may change |
| Upload to an online converter | Re-encoded on a server, and the file is now on that server | Metadata gone, privacy given away in the process |
This tool takes the first route. For a JPEG it walks the segment list after the start-of-image marker, deletes the APP1 segments that hold Exif and XMP plus the APP13 segment that holds IPTC, and copies every remaining segment and the entire compressed scan data unchanged. For a PNG it removes the tEXt, zTXt, iTXt, eXIf and tIME chunks. For a WebP it drops the EXIF and XMP chunks and clears the matching flags in the file header.
What this tool keeps, and why
Two pieces of data survive on purpose, because neither identifies you:
- Orientation. A phone photo is often stored sideways with a tag saying "rotate 90° to display". Deleting that tag makes the picture show up rotated in viewers and print sideways. The tool rewrites a minimal EXIF block containing only the orientation value, so the image still displays the right way up.
- ICC colour profile. This describes the colour space, not you. Removing it can shift the colours on wide-gamut displays, so it is left alone.
Everything that points back at a person or a device is removed: coordinates, altitude, timestamps, make, model, serial, owner, artist, software, thumbnails, XMP and IPTC. The tool reports the count per file so you can confirm nothing was quietly left behind.
Does social media remove metadata for you?
Most large platforms re-encode images on upload and drop most EXIF fields along the way. That is a side effect of resizing, not a privacy feature, and it is not something to depend on. The same file can be emailed, forwarded in a group chat, attached to a marketplace listing, dropped into a shared drive or uploaded to a site that preserves metadata. A test worth doing once: post a photo with known GPS data to a platform, download your own post, and inspect the result — the answer differs by platform, by upload path and by file type.
The reliable version is simpler. Clean the file before it leaves your device, and every channel downstream inherits the clean copy.
How to check a photo's metadata without this tool
- Windows: right-click the file → Properties → Details. The Camera, Origin and GPS sections list what is stored. "Remove Properties and Personal Information" creates a copy — but it only clears fields Windows knows about, and it silently re-saves the image.
- macOS: select the file and press
Command-I. The "More Info" panel shows camera, lens and location. Preview's Inspector (Tools → Show Inspector,Command-I) shows the full EXIF table. - Command line:
exiftool photo.jpgprints every field, including the ones Windows hides.exiftool -all= -overwrite_original photo.jpgstrips them — the right tool if you are cleaning a folder of hundreds.
If you only need to confirm one file before posting, the cards above do the same job without installing anything.
Which photo formats keep metadata?
JPEG carries the most: a full EXIF block, often an XMP packet, sometimes IPTC and a thumbnail. PNG is lighter but can hold text chunks, an eXIf chunk and a modification time. WebP can carry EXIF and XMP in its own chunks. HEIC — the default on modern iPhones — stores the same EXIF inside a container most desktop browsers cannot decode, which is why the route for HEIC is to export or convert to JPEG first, then clean the export. RAW files (CR2, NEF, ARW) are not edited here either; export first.
When metadata is not the whole story
Removing metadata removes what the file says. It does not remove what the picture shows: a street sign, a house number, a reflection in a window, a distinctive view. It also cannot recall copies that are already published — search engines, archives and re-posts keep their own copies, and cleaning the file on your disk does nothing to those. The tool is the last step before publishing, not a way to unpublish.
Related tools and guides
- What Is EXIF Data? — every field a photo carries, and who can read it.
- Photo Metadata Viewer — read every hidden field on any device, no install needed.
- How to Remove EXIF Data from Photos — the full walkthrough behind this tool, manual methods included.
- Zero-Upload PDF Metadata Scrubber — the same job for documents: author, producer, dates and the XMP packet.
- How to Remove Metadata from a PDF — field by field, with every manual method and where each one fails.
- Securely Merge PDFs Offline — combine documents in browser memory, no uploads.
- Privacy Policy & Cookie Analyzer — check what your site promises to do with the data it collects.
- Privacy tools category — every browser-side privacy utility on Daily Utility Lab.
faq
Frequently Asked Questions
What gets removed, what stays, and where your file goes (nowhere).
How do I remove metadata from a photo?
Add the photo to a tool that strips the metadata blocks rather than re-saving the picture. This page reads the file on your device, removes the EXIF, XMP and IPTC blocks that hold GPS coordinates, camera model and serial number, timestamps and editing software, then saves a copy with the same pixels. JPEG, PNG and WebP are handled losslessly — the image is never re-compressed.
Does removing metadata reduce image quality?
Not with this tool. It deletes whole metadata blocks from the file container and copies the compressed image data byte for byte, so pixels, sharpness and colour are unchanged. File size usually drops by the size of the metadata — often 1 KB to 60 KB on a phone photo, more if a thumbnail preview was attached. Tools that re-encode the image, such as screenshotting it or saving it through an editor, do lose quality.
Is my photo uploaded to a server?
No. The file is read with the browser File API and every byte is rewritten in this tab. There is no upload endpoint in the page: open DevTools, watch the Network tab while you clean a photo, and no request carries the image. The cleaned copy is created as a local blob and saved to your downloads folder. Closing the tab discards everything.
What metadata is stored in a photo?
A phone photo typically carries GPS latitude and longitude, the date and time to the second, device make and model, lens and exposure settings, the software that last edited it, a camera body serial number, an owner name if one was set, and sometimes a small embedded thumbnail of the original. Professional workflows add IPTC captions and credits, and AI tools add C2PA or XMP provenance records. All of it is removable.
Does Instagram or WhatsApp remove metadata automatically?
Most large platforms re-encode images on upload and drop most EXIF fields in the process, but you should not rely on it as your privacy plan. The original file can still be emailed, sent in a group chat, attached to a marketplace listing or uploaded to a site that preserves metadata. If you need the location gone, remove it from the file before it leaves your device.
Which formats does this tool support?
JPEG, PNG and WebP are cleaned losslessly. HEIC, AVIF, GIF and RAW files are not edited directly — export them as JPEG first, then clean the export. PDFs carry their own metadata and have a separate scrubber on this site.
This tool edits the file you select on your own device. It cannot remove copies of a photo that are already published elsewhere.