Image Metadata Remover
View and remove EXIF, GPS, and hidden data from images
Image Metadata Remover tool
Image Metadata Remover: key facts
- What it does
- View and remove EXIF, GPS, and hidden data from images
- Category
- Image Tools
- Cost
- Free, with no account, sign-up, or install.
- Your data
- Runs entirely in your browser — the files and text you enter are never uploaded to a server.
- Last reviewed
- . Report an incorrect result.
What this tool is for
A photograph is rarely just pixels. Tucked into the same file sits a record of the camera and lens that took it, the second it was captured, the software that edited it afterwards, and — if the device had location services running — the coordinates of the spot you were standing on. This tool opens that record, shows it to you in plain language, and then removes it.
Expand any file you add and the hidden fields are laid out: camera and lens, capture time, editing history, author and copyright, plus a full table of every tag that was found. Geotagged shots get their coordinates decoded into readable decimal degrees, so "does this reveal my address" stops being guesswork. Once you know what is in there, you decide what goes.
How to use the Image Metadata Remover
- Drag your images onto the upload panel, or click it to browse. JPG, PNG, and WebP are all handled.
- Open "Details" on any file to read what it carries, and export that record as JSON first if you want to keep it.
- Pick a method: lossless stripping, which leaves the picture itself untouched, or a full re-encode that rebuilds the pixels.
- Tick the categories to clear — camera and lens, location, date and time, software, or copyright and author.
- Clean the batch, read the verification line on each result, and download the files one by one or zipped together.
What the Image Metadata Remover gets right
- Nothing is hidden from you first. The tag table, the decoded coordinates, and the JSON export all come before the deletion, so you are never removing something you never saw.
- The default method rewrites only the container's metadata blocks and copies the compressed image data across untouched. Your photo is not recompressed, so it loses no quality and gains no artefacts — a real difference from tools that quietly redraw the picture to clean it.
- Rotation and colour survive by default. The orientation flag is written back on its own so phone photos do not come out sideways, and the ICC colour profile is kept unless you say otherwise, since neither is personal information.
- On JPEG files the categories are genuinely selective, editing individual EXIF tags — you can strip the GPS trail and keep your copyright notice. PNG and WebP have no equivalent tag structure, so those files are cleared completely, and the tool tells you so rather than pretending otherwise.
- Every cleaned file is re-opened and re-read afterwards, and the result reports what actually remains. A privacy tool should prove its work instead of asking you to assume it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is EXIF, and what else gets removed?
EXIF is the block cameras and phones write into an image: device make and model, lens, exposure settings, serial numbers, timestamps, and GPS coordinates. Photos often carry more besides — XMP from editing software, IPTC caption and rights fields, plain-text comments, and a small embedded thumbnail that can sometimes still show an earlier version of the picture. All of those are found and cleared.
Will cleaning the file reduce image quality?
Not in the default lossless mode. The compressed image data is copied over byte for byte and only the surrounding metadata blocks are rewritten, so the result is pixel-for-pixel the original. The optional re-encode mode does rebuild the picture and will compress it again, which is why it is offered as a deliberate choice rather than used automatically.
Can I delete the location but keep my copyright?
On JPEG, yes — untick location, leave copyright ticked, and the EXIF block is rebuilt with your rights information intact. PNG and WebP files do not store metadata as editable tags, so a partial removal is not possible for them and everything is cleared instead. The tool flags this whenever a mixed batch is queued.
Why bother if social networks strip metadata anyway?
Coverage is patchy. Some platforms clear it, some keep parts of it, and some preserve the original file for anyone who downloads it. Anything sent by email, chat, cloud link, or handed over as a file skips that step entirely. Cleaning before you share removes the dependency on someone else's policy.
Does anything get sent anywhere?
No. The file is read, parsed, and rewritten inside your browser, and no image ever reaches a server. The only outbound request the page can make is the optional map link next to a set of coordinates, which opens OpenStreetMap and is stated as such — and only if you click it.
Guides for the Image Metadata Remover
Background reading on the format and the problems people hit with it.
- GuideHow Image Compression WorksWhy a photo can lose 80% of its bytes and look identical: what lossy compression discards, how quality settings behave, and why PNG ignores them entirely.
- GuideWhat Is a CR3 File?CR3 is Canon's raw photo format, introduced in 2018. Here is what is inside one of these files, why most software cannot open them, and what to do with them.
- GuideWhat Is a HEIC File?HEIC is the photo format every iPhone has defaulted to since 2017. What it actually stores, why so little non-Apple software opens it, and what to do about it.
- How-toHow to Compress Images Without Losing QualityTruly lossless compression, and visually lossless compression, are different things. Which to use per image type, and where the quality thresholds actually sit.
- How-toHow to Convert CR3 to JPGTurn Canon CR3 raw files into JPGs without installing anything: the browser route step by step, plus what to set for quality, size, orientation and metadata.
