Remove metadata from your photos

A photo taken on a phone usually carries the exact coordinates where it was taken, the device model, and a serial number that can link every photo you have ever posted. This tool lists what is inside the file, then strips it without re-encoding the image.

No upload
No signup
No re-encoding
Free

The fields we look for

Not every camera writes every field, and most chat apps strip some of them. Upload a file to see the real list for that file — the table below is what typically survives.

Field	What it tells	Risk
GPS coordinates	Where the photo was taken, to a few metres	high
Camera make & model	e.g. Apple iPhone 15 Pro	medium
Camera serial number	Identifies the exact device that took it	high
Lens model	Which lens was used	low
Date taken	Original capture time, often with a time zone	low
Software	Editor or OS that saved the file	low
Artist / copyright	Your name or your client’s name	medium
Orientation	Kept on purpose, so the photo still displays upright	kept

Why it matters

Your home address is often in the file

GPS is written by default on most phones. Post a photo of something you are selling, and the buyer can read the coordinates of your living room. Blurring the background does not remove them.

Serial numbers and timestamps link photos together

A camera serial plus capture times is enough to prove that ten “different” accounts are one person. Removing them breaks that link.

Client names travel with delivered files

If your camera or editor writes an artist or copyright field, every file you hand over carries it. That is fine for a portfolio and not fine for an anonymous drop.

No re-encoding means no quality loss

The JPEG/PNG/WebP container stores metadata in separate segments and chunks. We remove those and copy the image data byte for byte, so the pixels and the colour profile are unchanged.

What GPS data actually reveals

A GPS fix stored in a photo is not a pin dropped roughly on a neighbourhood. It is a latitude and longitude pair with precision down to a few metres, plus an altitude and a timestamp. In dense cities that is enough to identify a building, a floor and often a flat.

The coordinates are written by the camera app unless you turn location off. They survive copying, emailing and most upload forms. Editing the photo in another app often keeps them.

Example

GPSLatitude31.23042

GPSLongitude121.47370

GPSAltitude12.4 m

GPSTimeStamp08:41:22 UTC

Strip the block and the coordinates go with it. The image itself is untouched.

How to use it

01
Drop a photo into the box above. It is read on your device — nothing is uploaded.
02
Check the field list. High-risk fields are marked; GPS coordinates link to a map so you can see exactly what the file reveals.
03
Download the cleaned file. The original stays on your device, untouched.

Limits worth knowing

—HEIC and RAW are not supported yet. Converting them properly is a different problem, and a broken file is worse than an unsupported one.
—Photos that have already passed through Instagram, WhatsApp or X often arrive with metadata already removed — that is why the list can be short.
—Live Photos are two files (image + video). Only the image file is processed here.
—The orientation tag is kept deliberately. Removing it can make portrait photos appear sideways in older viewers.

FAQ

Does this remove GPS location from a photo?+

Yes. GPS coordinates live in the EXIF block, which is removed along with the rest of the metadata. The pixel data is not touched.

Will the image quality change?+

No. The image is not re-encoded. We remove metadata segments from the container and copy the compressed image data as-is.

Are my photos uploaded to a server?+

No. The file is read with the browser’s File API and processed in a Web Worker on your device. There is no upload endpoint, and the tool works with the network disabled after the page loads.

Why is the orientation tag kept?+

Phones store the photo in the sensor’s orientation and record how it should be rotated. Removing that tag can make portrait photos display sideways. It reveals nothing about you, so it is kept.

Can I remove metadata from several photos at once?+

Not yet. Batch processing is on the roadmap; the current version handles one file at a time so the report stays readable.

Files are processed on your device. Erasemetadata cannot read them.JPG · PNG · WebP