Photo metadata remover, strip EXIF, IPTC and XMP without leaving your browser
A photo file carries two separate layers, the pixels you can see and the metadata hidden inside the file itself, including GPS coordinates precise enough to identify a street address. This tool cleans EXIF, IPTC and XMP together, entirely on your own device, and never sends the file anywhere.
Open the metadata remover A free account opens this tool. The interface is in English and your photo never leaves your browser.How it works
Three steps. The file is read, cleaned and rewritten locally, with nothing uploaded at any point.
Choose a photo
Select a JPEG, PNG or WebP file, or a HEIC or HEIF photo for a read only preview. The file is loaded straight into the browser using a local object URL, the same mechanism the tool uses to show you a preview, and at no point does it get sent to a server.
Review what metadata was found
The tool lists what it found before it removes anything: the EXIF segment and its size, IPTC blocks such as author and location fields, and XMP values, which often duplicate the same GPS coordinates and authorship in a separate XML format. Seeing the list first makes clear exactly what was in the file, rather than trusting a single cleaned button to have done something invisible.
Clean and check the result
After cleaning, the tool reports how many fields were removed and the file size before and after, since a photo with rich metadata, long keyword lists and full GPS data, can lose a noticeable number of kilobytes once those layers are gone. The image itself stays visually identical, because only the metadata around the pixels is touched, never the pixels themselves.
Three layers, one hidden thumbnail
Metadata is not stored in one place inside a photo, and cleaning only one layer leaves the others untouched.
Built to check every layer, not just the obvious one
Metadata that survives in a second, less obvious place is exactly as much of a leak as metadata left in the first, obvious one.
EXIF is a TIFF structure, not a separate file format
EXIF is a published CIPA standard, technically a TIFF structure embedded inside JPEG, PNG or WebP rather than a format of its own, built from a chain of Image File Directory tables. The main directory holds camera make and model, and points onward to a further directory holding capture details such as date, exposure and, when present, the camera's own serial number and the owner's name, all of it sitting quietly inside a file that looks, on screen, like nothing but a picture.
GPS data decodes to a street address, not just a dot on a map
GPS coordinates in EXIF are stored as degrees, minutes and seconds rather than a plain decimal number, but the conversion is standard and typically precise to a few metres, enough to identify the exact entrance of a building. Mapping software converts those coordinates into a postal address automatically, which is why a photo with its GPS metadata intact can reveal exactly where it was taken without a single word of text saying so.
The file stays valid, not just visually unchanged
PNG files are built from chunks, each with a declared length and a CRC32 checksum, and removing a chunk without recalculating the checksum correctly leaves a file some decoders reject as corrupted. WebP carries a header with flag bits that tell a decoder which chunks are present, and clearing an EXIF chunk without also clearing its flag leaves the decoder looking for data that is no longer there. The tool clears both the data and the corresponding flags, so the result opens cleanly everywhere, not just in the browser that made it.
A second, frozen copy can hide in the thumbnail
Many cameras and phones embed a small thumbnail image, commonly around 160 by 120 pixels, inside a second directory purely for quick previews in a gallery. If a photo was cropped or retouched afterwards in another program that never refreshed that thumbnail, the thumbnail can still show the original, uncropped scene even though the main image has been edited, effectively freezing a copy of what was supposed to be removed. The tool checks and clears this second directory as well as the main one.
Frequently asked questions
What kind of information can actually hide inside a photo file?
Two entirely separate layers exist beyond the pixels: EXIF, a published camera and imaging industry standard built as a TIFF structure inside the file, and two further layers, IPTC and XMP, that often duplicate the same information in their own formats. EXIF alone can carry camera make and model, the date and time of capture, exposure settings, GPS coordinates, and sometimes the camera's own serial number and the registered owner's name, none of which is visible anywhere in the image you actually see on screen.
How precise is the GPS location stored in a photo, really?
Precise enough to matter. The coordinates are typically accurate to a few metres, which is enough for mapping software to resolve them straight down to a specific building entrance or a garden gate rather than a vague neighbourhood. That is what makes GPS metadata in a shared photo a genuinely direct way to reveal an address, without the address ever being typed or spoken anywhere in the post itself.
If I remove EXIF, doesn't that clean everything?
No, and this is the most common mistake. The same GPS coordinates and authorship information frequently live in three separate places at once, EXIF, IPTC and XMP, because different software and workflows write to different layers. Adobe tools in particular often write location and authorship into XMP independently of EXIF. Cleaning only EXIF and leaving XMP untouched means a duplicate copy of exactly the data you meant to remove survives in the same file, readable by any software that happens to check that layer instead.
What is the IFD1 thumbnail problem, in practical terms?
Picture cropping a face out of a group photo in an editing program, then saving the result. The main image is now just the cropped face. But the small embedded thumbnail that the camera or phone wrote into a second metadata directory when the photo was first imported can still be the original, full, uncropped scene, because the editing program never regenerated it. Anyone with basic technical knowledge can pull that thumbnail out with an ordinary EXIF reader and see the background you thought you had removed. The tool clears this second directory along with the main metadata.
Don't social networks already strip this data for me?
Only partially, and inconsistently. Facebook and Instagram typically remove GPS coordinates on upload for their own legal reasons, but many platforms still keep the camera make, model and capture date in the file. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram often forward a photo completely unchanged, EXIF, IPTC and XMP intact, whenever it is sent as a file or document rather than through the ordinary photo sharing button, which is a common source of an unintentional leak by someone who assumed every sharing path cleans metadata automatically.
Does cleaning metadata change the quality of my photo, or guarantee anonymity?
No to both, and the tool says so plainly. For a JPEG, everything from the start of scan marker to the end of the file, the actual image data, is copied byte for byte, so image quality is identical to the original. HEIC and HEIF files are currently preview only, because their container stores data in several places at once and a safe rewrite needs validation against real files from multiple devices first; convert a HEIC file to JPEG before cleaning it properly. And removing metadata is not the same as anonymising a photo: the image itself can still show a face, a readable sign or a recognisable background, which metadata removal was never going to touch.
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