Skip to content
ImageConverter

Secure server conversion

Remove EXIF Data from Photos

Strip the hidden data out of your photographs — GPS coordinates, camera details, timestamps and software names. You are shown exactly what was found before it is removed, so you can see what you were about to share. The check happens on your device; the clean copy is made on our server and deleted as soon as you download it.

Deleted automatically Uploads removed within 30 minutes

Drag & drop your photos here

Up to 20 MB per file

Step by step

How to remove metadata from a photo in 3 steps

  1. Add your photos

    JPG, PNG and WebP. Several at once is fine.

  2. Look at what was found

    Any location data appears first, with a map link so you can see how precise it is.

  3. Download the clean copy

    Your original is untouched — you get a new file with -clean in the name.

Good to know

What gets removed, and what does not

Every field is removed. Nothing is selectively kept, because a partial strip is difficult to reason about and easy to get wrong.

What goes: GPS coordinates and altitude, date and time taken, camera make and model, lens details, exposure settings, serial numbers, owner and copyright fields, software names, thumbnails embedded in the file, and any proprietary tags the camera added.

One thing is applied rather than discarded. The orientation flag tells software which way up to display the image. Simply deleting it would leave phone photos lying on their side, so the rotation is applied to the actual pixels first and then the flag is dropped. The result looks correct everywhere, including in software that ignores the flag.

The important limit

This is worth being clear about, because it is where a tool like this can give false confidence.

Stripping metadata protects the file. It does not protect the photograph. Everything visible in the picture is still there:

  • A house number, a street sign, or a distinctive view through a window.
  • A face — yours or someone else's.
  • A screen showing an email address, a name or a document.
  • A reflection in a mirror, a window or someone's glasses.
  • A landmark that identifies the neighbourhood as surely as coordinates would.

If something in the frame reveals what you are trying to hide, crop it out. Cropping genuinely deletes those pixels, which is safer than drawing a box over them — in some formats a drawn box leaves the original content underneath.

Quality

Does stripping change the image?

Removing metadata requires re-saving the image, and what that costs depends on the format.

PNG and WebP: nothing. Both can be written losslessly, so the pixels are identical to the original.

JPG: one further round of compression, at a high quality setting. For a single pass this is invisible. It is unavoidable — writing a JPG means encoding a JPG — and it is the same cost any tool that strips EXIF from a JPG must pay, whether or not it mentions it.

The output keeps the format you started with, so a PNG stays a PNG and its transparency survives.

File size usually drops a little, since EXIF blocks and embedded thumbnails can run to tens of kilobytes. Occasionally a file grows slightly if the original was compressed harder than the quality used here — the difference is minor either way.

Faster ways to the same result

If you were going to process the photo anyway, you may not need this tool at all. Every tool on this site strips metadata as a side effect — converting, compressing, resizing, rotating and cropping all produce files with no EXIF, because the pixels are re-encoded and the metadata is left behind. This tool exists for when stripping is the only thing you want to do, and for showing you what was there.

When to strip

  • Selling something online. Marketplace photos taken at home carry your address, and the listing is public.
  • Posting publicly — forums, social media, reviews, dating profiles.
  • Sending photos to people you do not know: tradespeople quoting for work, insurers, buyers, landlords.
  • Publishing on a website. Photos on a page keep whatever the file carries, and anyone can download and inspect them.
  • Sharing photos of children, where location data deserves particular care.
  • Journalism and sensitive work, where a timestamp or a coordinate could identify a source.

When to keep it

Metadata is genuinely useful in the right context, and stripping it is not automatically the safer choice:

  • Personal photo libraries. Dates and locations are what make a library searchable and what group photos into places and trips.
  • Insurance and evidence. A timestamp and coordinate can support a claim, even though they do not prove it.
  • Photography. Exposure settings are how you learn from your own shots, and copyright fields assert authorship.
  • Stock and archives, which frequently require capture data.

Strip copies you share; keep your originals intact.

Do platforms not already remove it?

Some do, some do not, and none of them tell you which — so relying on it is a guess. Several major social networks strip EXIF on upload; messaging apps, email, cloud storage and direct file transfers frequently preserve everything.

If you want to know what a particular service does, the metadata viewer settles it: upload a tagged photo, download the result, and look at what survived.

Privacy

What happens to your file

This tool runs on our server, so it works the same on every phone and computer. Your file is uploaded, and this is exactly what happens to it:

  • Stored outside the public web root under a random name, never under your file's name.
  • Processed, with the original upload deleted immediately — whether it succeeded or failed.
  • The result sits behind a signed link that only you receive, which stops working after 20 minutes, and the file is deleted the moment you download it.
  • Anything never collected is deleted automatically within 30 minutes.
  • The image itself is never logged or kept. If a conversion fails, we record the formats involved and the error — not the file.
  • Camera metadata, including any GPS coordinates recording where a photo was taken, is removed from the result. Only the rotation needed to show the image the right way up is kept.

Questions & answers

Remove EXIF: frequently asked questions

What exactly gets removed?

Everything: GPS coordinates and altitude, dates, camera and lens details, exposure settings, serial numbers, owner and copyright fields, software names, and embedded thumbnails. The one exception is the orientation flag, which is applied to the pixels before being dropped — otherwise phone photos would end up sideways.

Does this make my photo anonymous?

No, and this is the important limit. Stripping metadata protects the file, not the photograph. A house number, a street sign, a face, a screen, a reflection or a recognisable landmark is still in the pixels. If something in the frame gives away what you are hiding, crop it out — cropping genuinely deletes those pixels.

Does removing metadata reduce image quality?

For PNG and WebP, not at all — both are written losslessly. For JPG it means one more round of compression at a high quality setting, which is invisible for a single pass. That cost is unavoidable: writing a JPG means encoding a JPG, and every tool that strips EXIF from a JPG pays it.

Do social networks not strip this already?

Some do, some do not, and none of them say which — so relying on it is a guess. Messaging apps, email, cloud storage and direct file transfers frequently preserve everything. You can test any particular service with the metadata viewer: upload a tagged photo, download it back, and see what survived.

Should I strip metadata from all my photos?

No — strip the copies you share and keep your originals intact. Dates and locations are what make a personal library searchable and what group photos into trips, and exposure settings are how photographers learn from their own work.

Is there a faster way if I am editing the photo anyway?

Yes. Every tool on this site strips metadata as a side effect — converting, compressing, resizing, rotating and cropping all produce files with no EXIF, because the pixels are re-encoded and the metadata is left behind. This tool is for when stripping is the only thing you want, and for seeing what was there.

Keep going

Related image tools

View all tools

Image Metadata Viewer

See exactly what your photos record: camera, settings, dates and the GPS coordinates of where they were taken.

In your browser

Crop Image

Drag to crop any image, with square and 16:9 ratio presets. Free, no sign-up, and it works the same on every phone and computer.

On our server

Compress JPG

Make JPG photos smaller, free and with no sign-up. Adjust the quality, see the saving for each photo, and download.

On our server

Resize Image

Change an image to any pixel size. Keep the proportions or set both dimensions, with presets for social media. Free, no sign-up.

On our server