Metadata

Remove EXIF Data from Photos

First see what is actually hidden in your photo — camera, timestamp, and often the exact GPS coordinates. Then remove it. The pixels are never re-encoded, so quality is untouched.

Your files never leave this device. Everything happens inside your browser, so there is no upload, no server copy and nothing to delete afterwards. You can test that claim: load this page, turn off your internet connection, and the tool still works.

What your photos are actually carrying

Every photograph taken on a phone or a camera arrives with a block of metadata attached. Some of it is harmless, some of it is genuinely revealing, and almost nobody has looked at it.

GPS coordinates. If location services were on, the file records where the photo was taken, typically to within a few metres. This is the one that matters. A photograph of an item for sale, taken at home, tells a buyer your address.
Date and time. The exact moment of capture, to the second.
Camera and lens. Make, model, and often the body serial number, which links every photo you have ever published to the same physical camera.
Software history. Which application edited the file, sometimes with version numbers.
An embedded thumbnail. Some editors leave the original thumbnail in place after a crop, so the pre-crop image can still be recovered from the file.

Drop a photo above and you will see exactly which of these your file contains, with a map link for any coordinates. That reading happens on your device — the file is not sent anywhere to be examined.

Why this does not reduce your image quality

This is the part most tools get wrong, and it is worth understanding because it is checkable.

A JPEG file is a sequence of labelled segments. Some hold the compressed picture data, others hold metadata — EXIF, XMP, colour profiles, comments. The typical online tool removes metadata by decoding the entire image into pixels and then saving a brand new JPEG. That works, but it re-compresses every pixel, costing a generation of quality to delete a few kilobytes of text.

This tool never decodes anything. It walks the segment structure, copies the compressed picture data across byte for byte, and simply omits the metadata segments. The pixels that come out are mathematically identical to the pixels that went in — not visually similar, identical. The same approach is used for PNG, where metadata lives in named chunks, and for WebP, where it lives in RIFF chunks.

The one exception is the colour profile, which is kept by default. It is technically metadata, but removing it changes how displays interpret your colours and can make images look washed out or oversaturated on wide-gamut screens. There is a switch if you want it gone.

Do social networks strip this for you?

Some do, some do not, and the behaviour changes without notice — so it is not something to rely on.

The large social platforms generally do strip EXIF from uploaded photos, partly for privacy and partly because re-encoding for their own delivery pipeline discards it anyway. But that only covers photos posted to those platforms. Metadata usually survives when you send a file as an email attachment, share it through a messaging app in "file" or "document" mode rather than as a photo, upload it to a marketplace listing, put it on your own website, or share a cloud storage link.

Those are precisely the routes people use for selling and for client work. Strip it yourself rather than hoping.

What removing metadata does not do

It is worth being clear about the boundary, because "removing EXIF" is sometimes treated as anonymity, and it is not.

The image itself still shows what it shows. A recognisable street, a house number, a reflection in a window, a distinctive view from a window — these identify a location far more reliably than coordinates, and no metadata tool touches them.

Removing metadata also does nothing about copies already shared. If a photo with GPS data is already online, cleaning your local copy changes nothing about theirs.

What it does do is close the easiest and most automated route: reading a location straight out of a file, at scale, without looking at the picture at all.

How to remove EXIF Data from Photos

Drop a photo onto the box above. Nothing is sent anywhere — the metadata is read on your device.
Read the report showing what the file contains, including any GPS coordinates.
Choose whether to keep the colour profile, which affects how colours display, and then strip the rest.
Download the cleaned file. It will be byte-for-byte identical apart from the removed metadata.

Limits worth knowing

Every tool has boundaries. These are this one's, stated plainly so you do not waste time discovering them yourself.

Metadata removal cannot undo anything already published. If a photo with GPS data is already online, removing it from your copy changes nothing about the copy they have.
The image itself may still identify a location through recognisable landmarks, street signs or reflections. Metadata removal is not anonymity.
Colour profiles are kept by default. Removing the profile makes the file smaller but can visibly shift colours on wide-gamut displays.
Some social platforms strip metadata on upload anyway, and others do not. Do not rely on the platform to do it for you.

Frequently asked questions

What is actually stored in EXIF data?

Camera make and model, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, the exact date and time the shot was taken, orientation, software used to edit it, and on a phone with location services enabled, GPS coordinates typically accurate to within a few metres. Some files also carry a thumbnail of the original image, which survives cropping in some editors.

Why does this not reduce quality when other tools do?

Most tools decode the image and save a new one, which re-compresses every pixel and loses quality. This tool works on the file structure directly, copying the compressed image data across byte-for-byte and simply omitting the metadata blocks. The pixels that come out are mathematically identical to the pixels that went in.

Does removing EXIF make the file smaller?

A little. Metadata is usually a few kilobytes, occasionally more if the file carries an embedded thumbnail or a large colour profile. It is a privacy tool rather than a compression tool — use the JPG compressor if size is your goal.

Should I remove the colour profile too?

Usually not. The colour profile tells displays how to interpret the colours. Removing it saves a few kilobytes but can make images look washed out or oversaturated on wide-gamut screens. Keep it unless you know your image is plain sRGB.

Do social networks remove this data automatically?

Some do, some do not, and the behaviour changes without notice. Facebook and Instagram strip most of it. Direct file sharing over email, messaging apps in file mode, cloud links and personal websites usually do not. Strip it yourself rather than trusting the platform.

Can removed EXIF data be recovered?

Not from the cleaned file — the bytes are genuinely gone. But your original still has it, and so does any copy already shared.