Remove EXIF Data — strip photo metadata & GPS online
Strip the camera model, timestamp and GPS location hidden in your photos before you share them. Metadata is removed in your browser, never on a server.
About the Remove EXIF data tool
Every photo your phone or camera takes carries a block of hidden data called EXIF. It records the make and model of the device, the exact date and time down to the second, the shutter speed, aperture and ISO, whether the flash fired, and — if location services were on — the GPS coordinates of where you were standing, often accurate to within a few metres. None of this is visible in the picture, and none of it is obvious when you attach the file to a message.
That matters because the coordinates in a holiday photo are a landmark, but the coordinates in a photo taken at home are your address. People routinely post pictures of a room, a pet or an item for sale without realising the file states where it was taken and when. Second-hand marketplace listings are a particularly common case: a seller photographs an item on their kitchen table and publishes their home location alongside it.
Some platforms strip EXIF on upload and some do not, and the behaviour changes without notice. Large social networks generally remove it — partly for privacy, mostly to save storage — but forums, messaging apps that send files as documents, cloud drive links, email attachments and direct file downloads usually pass it through untouched. Relying on the receiving platform is a guess. Removing it yourself before sharing is the only approach that does not depend on someone else's current policy.
This tool shows you what is actually in the file before it changes anything, so you can see whether GPS coordinates are present rather than assuming. It then writes out a copy with the metadata block removed, leaving the pixels exactly as they were. Nothing is uploaded — the file is parsed and rewritten inside your browser, which matters more here than on most tools, since the whole point is that the data in these files is sensitive.
How it works
Load the photo
Drop in a JPG. It is parsed on your own device, so the location data you are trying to hide is never transmitted.
See what is hidden inside
The tool lists how many metadata tags were found and states plainly whether GPS coordinates are among them.
Strip it and download
Save the cleaned copy. The image itself is unchanged — only the hidden metadata block is gone.
Frequently asked questions
- What exactly is stored in EXIF data?
- Typically the camera or phone make and model, the lens, the date and time to the second, exposure settings such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO, orientation, whether the flash fired, and often GPS latitude, longitude and altitude. Edited files may also carry the software used and a thumbnail of an earlier version of the image, which occasionally shows something that was cropped out.
- Does removing EXIF change how the photo looks?
- No. The metadata sits in a separate block from the image data, so stripping it leaves every pixel identical. The one visible effect can be orientation: some files rely on an EXIF rotation flag to display upright, and removing it may leave a photo sideways in software that trusted the flag. Check the result if the original came straight off a phone.
- Do social networks already remove this for me?
- The big platforms usually do, but you cannot rely on it and their behaviour changes without announcement. Forums, marketplaces, messaging apps that send files as documents, cloud storage links, email attachments and any direct download typically preserve EXIF in full. If the photo could reach any of those, strip it yourself rather than trusting the destination.
- Can deleted metadata be recovered from the new file?
- Not from the file this tool produces — the block is removed rather than blanked, so there is nothing left to read. Your original file still has everything, which is deliberate: you keep the shooting data for your own records and share the clean copy. If you want the metadata gone permanently, delete the original yourself afterwards.
- How do I stop my phone recording location in the first place?
- On iPhone, open Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Location Services, find Camera, and set it to Never. On Android, open the camera app settings and turn off location tags or store location. Existing photos keep the coordinates they already have, so anything shot before the change still needs stripping.
- Which file types does this work on?
- JPG, which is where EXIF is overwhelmingly found and where the privacy risk sits. PNG uses different metadata structures and rarely carries GPS at all. For a HEIC from an iPhone, convert it to JPG first with the HEIC converter and then run the result through here so you can confirm what was in it.
- Is my photo uploaded to check its metadata?
- No, and on this tool in particular that would defeat the purpose. The file is read from disk, parsed and rewritten entirely within your browser tab. The GPS coordinates you are trying to remove are never transmitted, never logged and never stored — you can confirm it by going offline and using the tool anyway.