EXIF & Location Remover
Photos from your phone can carry the GPS coordinates of where they were taken, plus the time, the device and sometimes a serial number. Drop a photo in to see exactly what's inside, then download a clean copy with the same pixels and none of the metadata.
40.7128, -74.0060
iPhone 15 Pro · 2026-07-14 18:32
Serial no. SN-ABC123
Same pixels, no metadata
How to Remove Metadata From a Photo
1Add your photos
Drop in JPEG, PNG or WebP files, up to 50 at a time, or paste one with Ctrl+V. They're read on your device; nothing is uploaded.
2Check what was found
Each photo lists its metadata. Location, capture time, names and serial numbers are marked in red so you can see what would have gone out with the file.
3Download the clean copy
Download photos one by one or all together as a ZIP. Clean files end in -clean, so your originals are never overwritten.
What a Photo From Your Phone Gives Away
If your camera app has location access (plenty of people allow it so the gallery can sort photos into places), every picture you take records GPS coordinates. Phone GPS is usually accurate to within about five metres outdoors. That's enough to pick out a single house.
The coordinates sit next to the exact second the photo was taken, the phone model, and the software version. Dedicated cameras go further: many write the body's serial number into every file, and some write the owner's name if it was ever entered in the camera's settings. A serial number is a quiet way to link photos posted under different accounts back to the same camera.
AI images carry their prompts
PNGs come out of image generators with their own kind of metadata. Stable Diffusion's AUTOMATIC1111 interface saves the full prompt, negative prompt, seed and model in a text chunk called "parameters". ComfyUI saves the entire node workflow. Anyone who opens the file in a metadata viewer, or drags it back into the same app, gets your exact recipe. This tool lists those chunks so you can see what's in there before it goes.
Where it actually leaks
The big social networks strip EXIF from the copy other people see, which is why most people never think about it. The original file survives intact when you attach a photo to an email, share a Google Drive or Dropbox link, send a picture "as a file" in WhatsApp or Telegram, upload to a forum, or post a listing photo on a classifieds site. Selling a couch from your living room with a photo taken in your living room is the classic way people publish their home address without realising it.
How This Remover Is Different
It shows you before it strips
Each photo gets a readout of what was found: coordinates (with a link to see the spot on a map), capture time, device, serial numbers, editing software. GPS and other personal fields are highlighted in red. It's often the first time people see what their phone has been recording.
No re-compression
The usual shortcut is to draw the photo onto a canvas and save it again. That works, but it re-encodes the JPEG and softens it a little every time. Here the metadata segments are cut out of the file structure and the image data is copied over untouched. Same pixels, smaller file.
Portrait photos don't turn sideways
A lot of strippers delete the Orientation tag along with everything else, and portrait shots come back rotated 90°. This tool writes back a tiny EXIF block holding only that one number, so the photo displays the way you took it.
Every file is re-checked
After cleaning, the output is scanned again with the same parser. The green "Verified clean" line means the clean file has no EXIF fields, XMP, IPTC, comments or text chunks left in it, apart from the rotation tag.
Exactly What Gets Removed
Removed
- All EXIF fields: GPS, dates, device, lens, serial numbers, camera settings, embedded thumbnail
- XMP (Adobe and editing-app metadata, which can hold a second copy of your GPS)
- IPTC captions, keywords and copyright fields
- JPEG comments and PNG text chunks, including AI prompts
- Content Credentials (C2PA) and other vendor blocks
- iPhone secondary images (HDR gain map, depth map)
Kept
- Orientation, so the photo isn't shown sideways
- Colour profile (ICC), so colours don't shift. It describes the colour space, not you
- Transparency and animation frames in PNG and WebP
Want to strip location before it's ever written? Turn off location access for your camera app. On iPhone you can also tap Options at the top of the share sheet and switch off Location for a single share.
Background reading: what's hiding in your photo's EXIF data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are my photos uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read with JavaScript on your own device, the metadata is cut out there, and the clean copy is handed straight back to your browser as a download. You can check this yourself: load this page, switch off Wi-Fi, then clean a photo. It still works, because nothing needs the network.
Does removing EXIF data reduce image quality?
Not with this tool. Most EXIF removers redraw the photo on a canvas and save a new JPEG, which compresses it a second time. This one cuts the metadata blocks out of the file and copies the compressed image data across byte for byte, so the pixels in the clean file are identical to the original. The file usually gets a few kilobytes smaller, sometimes more if the camera embedded a thumbnail.
Why does my cleaned photo still have one EXIF tag?
That's the Orientation tag, and it's kept on purpose. Phones save portrait photos as landscape pixels plus a note saying "rotate this 90°". Strip that note and the photo shows up sideways. The tag only contains a number from 1 to 8. It says nothing about you, your device, or where you were.
Can I remove metadata from iPhone HEIC photos?
Not yet. HEIC files need a decoder that most browsers don't ship. The easiest workaround: in Settings > Camera > Formats, choose Most Compatible, and your iPhone will save JPEGs. Photos you share by AirDrop or email from the Photos app are often converted to JPEG on the way out, too.
Do Instagram, Facebook and X remove location data anyway?
They strip EXIF from the copy they show to other people, yes. The risk is everywhere else: email attachments, cloud-drive share links, files sent "as document" in messaging apps, forum uploads, and your own website, where the original file is usually served exactly as you uploaded it.
What happens to iPhone HDR and depth data?
Newer iPhones attach extra images after the main photo (an HDR gain map, sometimes a depth map), indexed by a block called MPF. Those secondary images carry their own copy of the metadata, so they're removed along with the index. The main photo looks the same; on an HDR screen, highlights may look slightly less bright than in the original.