Your photos are broadcasting your location
That selfie you took at home? Your phone tagged it with GPS coordinates accurate to about 10 meters. The metadata also includes your phone model, the exact time, and sometimes even the direction you were facing. Anyone who downloads that image can extract all of it in seconds. Most people don’t know this. The ones who do are already stripping EXIF data before sharing.
This tool removes everything. EXIF, IPTC, XMP, all of it, gone. Upload your photo, download a clean copy. The image looks identical pixel-for-pixel. The invisible data hitchhiking inside the file? Deleted.
Two clicks, total cleanup
- Upload your photo with “Choose File”.
- Click “Remove EXIF & Download”.
That’s the whole process. The clean image downloads instantly. No settings to configure, no checkboxes to tick. Everything gets stripped, GPS coordinates, camera serial numbers, timestamps, lens info, editing software flags, copyright tags. All of it.
What gets removed
- GPS coordinates: latitude, longitude, altitude
- Camera info: model, serial number, lens, firmware version
- Shooting data: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash, focal length
- Timestamps: when the photo was taken, when it was last edited
- Software tags: which app processed it, editing history
- IPTC/XMP data: captions, keywords, copyright notices, custom fields
The pixels? Untouched. Every color, every detail, every edge, exactly the same. The file might be a few KB smaller since the metadata block itself takes up space, but visually nothing changes.
Why this actually matters
Your apartment photos can dox you. You post a picture of your new bookshelf on Reddit. The EXIF data contains GPS coordinates pointing to your exact address. Someone pulls the coordinates, drops them into Google Maps, and now a stranger on the internet knows where you live. This isn’t theoretical, it happens.
Selling stock photos? Strip first. Buyers downloading your images from a marketplace can see your camera’s serial number, your editing software, and potentially the location of every shoot. That’s more personal information than you probably want floating around.
Wedding and real estate photography exposes client addresses. You delivered 500 wedding photos. Each one contains GPS data pointing to the ceremony venue, the reception hall, and the couple’s home where you shot the getting-ready portraits. Your clients probably didn’t think about this when they asked for the files.
Journalists and whistleblowers know this drill already. A leaked photo can be traced back to the device that captured it. Camera serial numbers are unique. GPS data pinpoints the source. Stripping metadata before sharing sensitive material isn’t optional in these contexts, it’s survival.
GDPR and privacy laws in some jurisdictions classify GPS-tagged photos as personal data. If you’re storing or sharing user-uploaded images, stripping metadata first can help you stay compliant.
Curious what metadata your photos actually contain before you strip it? Run them through the Image Metadata Viewer first. If the file size needs trimming after cleanup, the Image Compressor handles that.
Metadata FAQ
What specifically gets deleted?
Everything. EXIF (camera/phone data), IPTC (editorial data), XMP (editing history), GPS blocks, thumbnail previews embedded in the file, custom tags. The result is a bare image file with zero metadata.
Does the photo look any different?
Identical. Not “nearly identical”, pixel-for-pixel identical. Metadata is invisible data stored alongside the image. Removing it doesn’t touch a single pixel.
Do all photos have EXIF data?
Most camera and phone photos do. Screenshots typically have minimal metadata. Images that have already been processed by social platforms (Facebook strips most EXIF on upload, for example) may have little left. But it doesn’t hurt to run them through anyway.
Will the file get smaller?
By a few KB, usually. Metadata blocks are small relative to pixel data. On a 5 MB photo, you might save 20-50 KB. Not much, but not nothing either.
How do I know if my phone is adding GPS to photos?
Check your camera app settings. On iPhone, it’s under Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Camera. On Android, look for “Location tag” or “GPS tag” in your camera settings. Most phones have it enabled by default.