Drag & drop a photo here
or
PNG, JPG or WEBP — cleaned locally on your device
What's actually in a photo's metadata
Guide last reviewed: 28 September 2026
Most photos from phones and cameras carry hidden EXIF metadata alongside the visible image: the exact camera/phone model, the date and time taken, exposure and camera settings, and — if location services were on when you took the photo — precise GPS coordinates of exactly where it was taken, down to a few meters. None of that is visible when you look at the photo itself, but it travels silently with the file wherever you send it, and anyone who receives the original file can extract it.
How this tool removes it
This tool redraws your photo onto a blank canvas and re-encodes it from scratch, pixel by pixel. Canvas-rendered output contains only that pixel data — none of the original file's metadata carries over, because the browser's Canvas API has no mechanism to read or copy it in the first place. The visible image itself is completely unchanged; only the hidden data attached to the file is gone. Before cleaning, the tool also does a quick scan of your original file for common metadata markers (EXIF, XMP) so you know whether there was actually anything to remove.
How to remove metadata from a photo
- Bring in the photo you want cleaned — drag and drop it, or click to pick a file (PNG, JPG, or WEBP).
- The tool scans the original for metadata and shows whether any was found, then produces a cleaned version automatically.
- Download the cleaned photo — it looks identical to the original, minus the hidden data.
When this matters
- Before posting a photo publicly — social media, marketplaces, forums — where you don't want your location, device, or capture time attached to the file.
- Before sending a photo to someone you don't fully trust with your location or device details.
- When a photo was taken somewhere sensitive — your home, a private event, a place you'd rather not have geotagged and traceable.
- As routine practice for anyone who regularly shares photos and would rather not think about it case by case.
Common uses
People use this before uploading photos to marketplaces, forums, or social media; before sending photos to someone outside their immediate circle; and as a general privacy habit for any photo leaving their device. It's a lightweight, one-click alternative to manually checking and stripping EXIF data in a full photo editor.
Frequently asked questions
Does this change how the photo looks?
No — the visible pixels are copied exactly; only the invisible metadata attached to the file is removed. Re-encoding to JPG does apply that format's normal compression, so a JPG re-save may be very slightly different at the pixel level, though visually indistinguishable at reasonable quality.
How do I know if my photo actually had metadata?
The tool scans your original file before cleaning and tells you whether it found EXIF or XMP metadata markers — some images (already-cleaned files, certain screenshots, some PNGs) genuinely have none to begin with.
Does this remove metadata from video or only photos?
Only still images (PNG, JPG, WEBP) — video files store metadata differently and aren't supported by this tool.
Is re-encoding the only way to strip metadata?
It's the simplest reliable way in a browser without a dedicated EXIF-parsing library — since Canvas re-encoding never copies metadata in the first place, there's no risk of accidentally missing a field the way a targeted "delete these specific tags" approach might.