Remove EXIF metadata from photos

The short answer

Every photo from a phone or camera carries hidden data alongside the image. That data can include where it was taken, when, and on which device. Before you post, sell, or send a photo publicly:

1. Open it in the EXIF Viewer to see what’s there.
2. Strip it with Remove EXIF Data, which removes metadata losslessly from JPG, PNG, and WebP files, without re-encoding the image.
3. Turn off location tagging in your camera app so new photos don’t record it in the first place.

What EXIF data contains

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of fields written by the camera when the photo is taken. Other metadata blocks, such as XMP and IPTC, are often added later by editing apps. Together they can include:

Category	Examples	Why it matters
Location	GPS latitude, longitude, altitude, direction	Can reveal your home, workplace, or a child’s school
Time	Date and time taken, date modified, time zone offset	Shows routines and when you were somewhere
Device	Camera or phone make and model, lens, software version	Narrows down who took the photo
Serial numbers	Camera body or lens serial, unique image IDs	Can link photos from the same device across sites
Settings	Exposure, aperture, ISO, focal length, flash	Mostly harmless and useful to photographers
Editing and rights	Software used, author, copyright, captions, keywords	May include your name or edit history
Thumbnail	A small embedded preview	Can show an older, uncropped version of the image

The embedded thumbnail deserves a note. Some editors update the main image after a crop but leave the old thumbnail in place. Stripping metadata removes it.

Do websites remove it for me?

Some do and some don’t, and policies change. Many large social networks strip location data from public images, but files sent as documents in messaging apps, attached to emails, uploaded to marketplaces, forums, or cloud folders, or posted on your own website often keep everything. Don’t rely on the destination. Remove it yourself when it matters.

How to check a photo

1. Open the EXIF Viewer.
2. Drop in a photo, or several.
3. Review the camera, lens, exposure, date taken, and GPS fields.

If GPS coordinates are present, you’ll see them. There’s an optional link to open the location on OpenStreetMap, which is used only if you click it. Nothing is sent anywhere just by viewing.

For a deeper look, the Image Metadata Viewer lists every metadata block it finds, including EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, ICC profile, and JFIF, and lets you copy everything as JSON.

How to remove EXIF data without losing quality

Many tools remove metadata by decoding the image and saving it again. That works, but for a JPG it means another round of lossy compression. Pixellin’s remover takes a different approach. It rewrites the file’s structure and drops the metadata segments while leaving the compressed image data untouched. The pixels are identical to the original.

1. Open Remove EXIF Data.
2. Add your JPG, PNG, or WebP files by dropping, choosing, or pasting them. Batches of up to 200 files work.
3. Decide whether to keep the ICC color profile. It’s kept by default because removing it can shift colors in photos shot in wide-gamut color spaces. It doesn’t identify you.
4. Select Process.
5. Download each file, or select Download all to get a ZIP.

What’s removed: GPS location, camera serial numbers, timestamps, XMP, IPTC, and comments, along with the rest of the EXIF fields.

All of this happens in your browser. The photos you’re cleaning never leave your device, which matters when the whole point is privacy.

To confirm it worked, drop the cleaned file back into the EXIF Viewer. The location and device fields should be gone.

The orientation flag

Phones usually save photos in the sensor’s native orientation and add an EXIF orientation value that tells viewers “rotate this 90°.” If a tool strips every field blindly, portrait photos can suddenly display sideways.

Pixellin’s remover keeps the orientation flag on purpose, so your photos stay upright. The flag only says how to rotate the image. It contains nothing personal.

If you’d rather have no EXIF at all, converting or resizing the image is an alternative. Those tools apply the orientation directly to the pixels and save a file with no EXIF. The trade-off is that the image is re-encoded, which is fine for sharing but isn’t lossless.

Stop your phone from recording location

Removing metadata after the fact works, but it’s easy to forget. Turning off location tagging for the camera prevents GPS data from being written at all. Menu names vary by software version and manufacturer, so use these as general directions.

iPhone

• Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera and choose Never. New photos won’t contain GPS coordinates.
• When sharing from the Photos app, you can tap Options at the top of the share sheet and turn off Location for that share. This applies only to what you’re sending. The original keeps its data.

Android

• Open the Camera app, go to its settings (usually a gear icon), and turn off the option called something like Location tags, Save location, or Geotagging.
• Alternatively, go to Settings > Apps > Camera > Permissions > Location and set it to Don’t allow.
• Some gallery apps offer a “remove location data” toggle when sharing. Check yours, but verify the result with a viewer.

Keep in mind that turning off location doesn’t remove device model, timestamps, or other fields. Use the remover for those.

When you might want to keep metadata

Metadata isn’t all bad. Photographers rely on exposure data to learn from their shots. Date taken keeps your photo library in order. Copyright and author fields can help assert ownership. A reasonable approach is to keep full metadata in your private archive and strip it only from the copies you share publicly.