Guide
Removing EXIF, GPS and other hidden data from photos before you share them
Every photo carries more than the picture. Phones and cameras write the exact GPS position where it was taken, the date and time to the second, the device model and sometimes its serial number. Editing apps add their own history, and many files contain a small preview image that can still show what was cropped out. Sharing such a file reveals all of it. This tool shows what each photo contains and removes it before you send it anywhere.
See what a photo reveals
Drop one or more images and the tool lists the metadata it finds, grouped by kind: location, camera and lens, dates, thumbnails, XMP, IPTC captions and credits, comments, and text stored in PNG files. Sensitive items are highlighted. A GPS position is shown as coordinates, so you can see exactly how precise it is; with modern phones that is usually within a few meters of where you stood.
Hidden details people overlook
Embedded thumbnails are small copies of the original that some editors fail to update after cropping, so a cropped-away face or document can still be inside. Multi-picture data in phone JPEGs can hold extra preview images. XMP blocks record editing software and sometimes original file names. PNG images created by AI image generators often store the full prompt and settings as text. All of these are listed and removed.
Lossless cleaning for JPEG, PNG and WebP
For the three most common web formats, the tool does not decode and re-save the picture. It walks through the file’s structure, cuts out the metadata sections and writes the rest unchanged. The image data stays byte-for-byte identical, so there is no quality loss at all, and the file usually gets a little smaller.
Other formats
HEIC, TIFF, AVIF and other formats store metadata in more complex containers. For those, the photo is decoded and saved again as a brand-new JPG at high quality, or as PNG when it has transparency. A fresh file cannot inherit anything, and the result line says that it was re-encoded.
The two keep options
“Keep color profile” leaves the ICC profile in place. It only describes how colors should be shown and contains nothing personal, and removing it can shift colors of photos from modern phones. “Keep rotation” keeps a tiny orientation tag, so photos that were taken sideways still appear upright; without it, some viewers would show them rotated. Both are on by default and both can be switched off for a completely bare file.
Verified result
After cleaning, the tool scans the output file again with the same reader. If nothing is left, it says “Verified: no metadata left”. If you kept the color profile or rotation, it lists exactly those items, so you know precisely what remains.
What metadata removal does not do
It does not change what is visible. Street signs, house numbers, faces, reflections and documents in the frame still give information away. Blur them with Blur Faces in Photo or Blur Image before sharing.
Batch use and privacy
Clean a whole set of photos for a marketplace listing or a property ad in one go. All work happens in your browser; the photos are not uploaded, which is the point when the goal is privacy.
Related tools
To add a visible date stamp instead, try Add Timestamp to Photo. To shrink cleaned photos for email, use the Image Compressor.
Checked against the current version of the EXIF Data Remover on .