Remove EXIF data from a photo — before you share it
Load a photo, see what metadata it carries (GPS position, camera model, capture time) and download a clean copy without that data. Everything happens in your browser — and here that is not a side note but the whole point: a photo whose location data you want to delete should not travel through a stranger's server first.
What is in the EXIF header anyway?
Every digital camera and smartphone writes metadata into the image file at the moment you press the shutter: model, lens, exposure, an exact timestamp — and, with location enabled, the GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken. They are more precise than many expect: EXIF stores latitude and longitude down to fractions of an arc second, and one arc second of latitude corresponds to roughly 31 metres on the ground. A carelessly shared photo can reveal your home address.
Don't Instagram & co. strip EXIF anyway?
On upload to large platforms: usually yes. But e-mail attachments, cloud shares, USB sticks and many messengers pass the file on unchanged — metadata included. As soon as you hand over the file itself (job application, classified ad, forum), cleaning it is your responsibility.
Honest limits
- Removal is lossless: only the metadata blocks are cut out of the file, the image data stays byte for byte identical. The orientation flag is part of EXIF, though — for rotated photos the tool offers to bake the rotation into the pixels first (a single re-encode), so the photo does not end up sideways.
- Version 1 handles JPEG only — PNG and WebP are coming. In practice that covers the main risk: camera and phone photos with GPS are almost always JPEGs.
- What is removed is the file's metadata — visible image content (street signs, reflections) naturally stays recognisable.
- Copies you already shared keep their metadata; cleaning only helps going forward.