Most photos carry a hidden block of information called EXIF metadata. It’s useful for organising your own pictures, but when you share a photo it goes along with it, and it can say more than you meant to.
What EXIF can reveal
- Where the photo was taken: GPS coordinates, often accurate to a few metres, and sometimes altitude and the direction the camera faced.
- When it was taken, to the second.
- What took it: the phone or camera model, the lens, and sometimes the camera’s serial number.
- How it was taken: exposure, ISO, focal length and whether the flash fired.
- What edited it: the software used.
- A small preview image. Some editors don’t update it, so a cropped photo can still carry a thumbnail of the uncropped original.
Check a photo first
Drop the photo into the EXIF Viewer to see everything it contains, including any GPS location. It reads JPG, PNG, WebP and iPhone HEIC files, on your device.
When you need to remove it
Most large social networks strip location data from the photos they publish. But plenty of other routes pass the original file along untouched: email attachments, cloud share links, forums, online marketplaces, your own website, and messaging apps when you send a photo “as a file” or “as a document”. If you’re not sure, remove it.
Remove it in your browser
The EXIF Remover cleans JPG, PNG and WebP files without re-compressing them, so the image quality is exactly the same. It removes EXIF, GPS, XMP, IPTC, comments and timestamps. It keeps two things on purpose: the colour profile, so colours don’t shift, and a JPG’s orientation, so the photo doesn’t turn sideways.
Photos saved by this site’s resizers, compressors, converters and editing tools don’t include the original’s metadata either.
On iPhone
- When sharing: in the share sheet, tap Options at the top and turn off Location before sending.
- For one photo: on recent versions of iOS, open the photo, swipe up (or tap ⓘ), tap Adjust next to the location and choose No Location.
- Stop recording location: go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera and choose Never.
On Android
Open your camera app’s settings and turn off the option to save location. It’s called something like Location tags or Save location, depending on your phone. For photos you’ve already taken, the EXIF Remover works in your phone’s browser.
On Windows
Right-click the photo and choose Properties → Details → Remove Properties and Personal Information. Then choose Create a copy with all possible properties removed. This works for JPG files; other formats may not offer the option.
On a Mac
- Preview: open the photo and choose Tools → Show Inspector. In the GPS section, click Remove Location Info. This removes the location only, not the other details.
- Photos app: choose Image → Location → Hide Location before sharing. When you export, leave Location Information unticked.
Going further
Removing metadata doesn’t hide what’s in the photo. Street signs, house numbers, number plates, faces and reflections can give away just as much. Blur or pixelate them before you share. If you share photos to show off your work, a watermark makes it clear who they belong to.