Remove EXIF data from a photo
Every photo your phone takes has a second, invisible file inside it. This shows you what is in there, then removes it without recompressing a single pixel.
Leave this off unless a stripped photo comes out sideways. It is the one option on this page that changes pixels.
What is actually in there
EXIF began as a way for a camera to note its own settings — shutter, aperture, focal length — so a photographer could look them up later. Phones write considerably more than that. A typical photo straight off a handset carries the GPS coordinates where it was taken, usually accurate to within a few metres, along with the altitude; the date and time to the second; the make and model of the device; the lens; sometimes the camera body's serial number and the registered owner's name; the name of the last app to touch the file; and frequently a full-size embedded thumbnail, which is generated before you crop and can therefore still show the part of the picture you cropped out.
This page reads all of that back to you before it deletes anything, because “remove EXIF” is a much less interesting promise than seeing your own street coordinates printed on the screen.
Where it actually leaks
The large social networks strip metadata on upload — Facebook, Instagram, X and Reddit all re-encode what you post, and the EXIF does not survive. That fact gets repeated until people conclude the problem is solved. It is not, because most photos do not travel that way.
Email attachments keep EXIF. So do messaging apps when you send a photo as a file rather than as an image. So do marketplace and classified listings on many smaller platforms, forum attachments, images pasted into shared documents, files handed to a client on a USB stick, and anything you upload to a form. Selling a sofa with three photos taken in your living room can publish your home address to anyone who knows how to open a file properties dialog.
Why this does not recompress the photo
A JPEG file is a chain of segments. The image itself is one long entropy-coded stream; the metadata sits in separate application segments beside it — APP1 for EXIF and XMP, APP13 for the Photoshop and IPTC block, and a plain comment segment. Removing the metadata means writing the file out again without those segments and copying the image stream across byte for byte.
The output therefore decodes to exactly the same pixels as the input. That matters because the common alternative — opening the photo and saving it again, which is what most “metadata remover” tools do — puts the image through a fresh round of JPEG compression and throws away real quality every time you use it.
Three segments are deliberately kept: the JFIF header, an embedded ICC colour profile, and Adobe's colour-transform marker. Those are not metadata about you; they are instructions about how to display the colours. Strip them and the picture visibly changes.
The one thing that does change
Orientation. Phones record the frame in whatever way the sensor is wired and then add an EXIF Orientation tag telling the viewer to rotate it. Delete the metadata and the tag goes with it, so a photo taken in portrait can appear sideways in software that was relying on the tag. Most modern viewers and browsers hide this from you; some do not.
If that happens, tick the box above. That path decodes the image with the rotation applied and re-encodes it at quality 94, so the pixels are baked the right way up — and, unavoidably, recompressed once. It is off by default because the lossless path is the right answer for almost everyone.
What this does not cover
PNG files are handled as well: the text chunks (tEXt, iTXt, zTXt), any embedded eXIf block and the modification timestamp are removed, while the colour and transparency chunks stay. HEIC, WebP and video files are not handled here. Neither is the filename, the containing folder, or the far more obvious fact that the photograph itself may show a street sign, a number plate or a window with a recognisable view. Metadata is one layer, not the whole problem.
Common questions
Does this reduce the image quality?
No. For JPEG and PNG the metadata blocks are removed and the compressed image data is copied through untouched, so the output decodes to identical pixels. The single exception is the rotation checkbox, which re-encodes on purpose and says so.
Does it remove the GPS location?
Yes. The GPS coordinates live inside the EXIF block, so removing that block removes them. The tool shows you the coordinates first so you can see exactly what was there.
Does it work on PNG files?
Yes. PNG stores metadata in separate chunks; the text, EXIF and timestamp chunks are dropped and the image, palette and transparency chunks are kept.
Why does my photo look rotated after stripping?
Because the EXIF Orientation tag is gone and your viewer was relying on it. Tick the rotation box and run it again — that version bakes the rotation into the pixels, at the cost of one re-encode.
How can I check it actually worked?
Drop the cleaned file back onto this page. It will report that there is nothing left to remove. You can also check the file properties in Windows Explorer or macOS Finder.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read into memory by your own browser and rewritten there. Disconnect from the internet after this page loads and it still works.