To remove EXIF data, drop your photos here. The tool deletes the GPS location, camera details, serial numbers, dates and other metadata inside your browser, without re-compressing the picture, and you download clean copies.
EXIF is a block of text and numbers that a camera or phone writes into every photo it saves, next to the picture itself. Nobody sees it when the photo is on screen, but any photo app, file viewer or script can read it. Some of it is harmless, such as the exposure time or the aperture. Some of it is personal: the GPS coordinates of the spot where the photo was taken, often accurate to a few metres; the exact date and time, sometimes with your time zone; the make, model and serial number of the phone or camera body and lens; and an author or copyright name if you once typed it into your camera.
Other metadata travels alongside EXIF. XMP is written by editors such as Lightroom and can record the editing app, keywords and your name. IPTC holds captions and credits for press photos. Phones may also add an embedded thumbnail (a small copy of the photo, which can show a version from before you cropped it) and maker notes, a vendor-specific block of camera settings. Some phones attach extra data after the end of the image, for example the short video clip of a motion photo or a depth map; that is removed too.
The GPS position is the one that matters most. A photo of your new sofa taken at home, posted on a marketplace or sent to a stranger as a file, can carry the coordinates of your front door. Apple’s own safety guide puts it plainly: people you share photos with “may be able to access the location metadata and learn where it was taken” (Apple Support).
Press Try a sample photo with location data above. The sample is a 1200 px JPEG of 27,316 bytes whose EXIF has been filled in the way a phone does it: GPS position 48.85840, 2.29450 at 35 m (the Eiffel Tower in Paris), taken 2026:05:14 18:42:07 with time zone +02:00, make “Sample Phone Co.”, model “Sample Phone 1”, serial number SAMPLE-0001, lens, aperture f/1.7, 1/120 s at ISO 64, and an artist name. The tool lists all of it, with a link that opens the spot on OpenStreetMap.
The clean copy is 26,682 bytes: the 620-byte EXIF block is gone and the image data is identical, byte for byte, so the picture looks exactly the same. On a real phone photo the saving is usually bigger, because a single EXIF block can hold up to 64 KB, including the thumbnail and maker notes, and XMP and motion-photo data come on top.
Most “remove metadata” tools open the photo and save it again, which re-compresses a JPEG and costs a little quality every time. This tool edits the file structure instead. A JPEG is a list of labelled segments: the metadata segments are left out and the ones that describe the picture (quantisation and Huffman tables, frame header and the compressed scan data) are copied unchanged. PNG chunks and WebP chunks are handled the same way, so PNG checksums stay valid and the WebP header is corrected to match. After cleaning, the tool reads the new file again and tells you what, if anything, is left.
HEIC photos from iPhones, and TIFF or AVIF files, can’t be edited in place here. They are decoded and saved as a new JPEG (or PNG when the image may have transparency), which by its nature carries no metadata. The file is marked “Saved as JPEG” so you know it was re-encoded.
Keep rotation (on by default) writes back a 26-byte EXIF block holding only the Orientation tag when the original had one, so a portrait photo still shows upright. Turn it off only if you will rotate the photo yourself; the image may then appear sideways. Keep colour profile (on by default) keeps the ICC profile, which describes the colour space, for example Display P3 on recent phones. It contains no personal details, and removing it can make bright reds and greens look duller. Everything else, including GPS, dates, device and lens details, serial numbers, software, author, comments, XMP, IPTC, thumbnails and trailing data, is always removed.
On an iPhone you can leave the location out of a single share: in the Share sheet tap Options and turn off Location, and “Location Not Included” appears above the button (Apple Support). Google Photos says that, other than partner sharing, new albums, links and conversations you share don’t include location details by default (Google Photos Help). Both settings control what those apps send. A file you attach to an email, upload to a website or copy to a USB stick still carries everything, and social networks and messaging apps each handle metadata in their own way, so check their help pages rather than assume. Cleaning the file itself is the only way to be sure.
Removing metadata does nothing about what is visible in the picture. A street sign, a house number, a car number plate, a face or a reflection in a window can give away a place just as well as GPS. Cover those with Censor Photo before you share. It also can’t reach copies that have already left your device: photos already posted, sent or synced to a cloud keep their metadata. And GIF and SVG files are not handled; they rarely carry camera data, but convert them to PNG with the Image Format Converter if you need to be certain.
Does removing EXIF data reduce photo quality? No. For JPG, PNG and WebP the tool cuts the metadata blocks out of the file and copies the image data byte for byte, so nothing is re-compressed. Each file shows “Pixels untouched (lossless)” when that check passes. HEIC, TIFF and AVIF photos are the exception: they are saved as a new JPEG or PNG.
Are my photos uploaded anywhere? No. The files are read and rewritten by JavaScript in this browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, and the map link only opens if you click it.
Why is my photo sideways after removing metadata elsewhere? Phones often save a portrait photo as a landscape image plus an Orientation tag that says “turn this 90°”. Tools that delete all EXIF delete that tag too. With Keep rotation on, this tool writes back a tiny EXIF block that holds only the Orientation value and nothing else.
Can I remove only the location and keep the date and camera? Not in this tool; it removes all personal metadata at once, which is the safe default when a file leaves your hands. On an iPhone you can share without location from the Share sheet (Options, then turn off Location), which keeps the other details.
What about screenshots and images made by AI generators? Screenshots usually carry little EXIF, but PNG files can hold text chunks: some image generators store the full prompt and settings there, and editing apps add their name and a timestamp. The tool lists those text chunks and removes them.
Does this delete the location from photos I already posted? No. It only cleans the copy you download. Photos already uploaded, emailed or backed up keep whatever metadata they had; delete and re-upload them if that matters.
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