Remove EXIF metadata from a photo — GPS, camera serial, and what platforms actually strip

What's actually in EXIF

EXIF is a metadata standard (Exchangeable Image File format) embedded inside JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, and WebP files. Your phone or camera writes it when the shutter fires. A typical iPhone JPEG carries roughly 80–120 tags. Most are harmless (lens focal length, shutter speed). A few are not.

The ones that leak real-world identity:

• GPSLatitude / GPSLongitude / GPSAltitude — where the shutter fired, usually to 3–10 meter accuracy. On iPhone and most Android phones this is on by default.
• Make / Model / SerialNumber / LensSerialNumber — the specific hardware. Not just "iPhone 15 Pro"; the unique serial if the camera writes it (most DSLRs do, most phones don't — but some do).
• DateTimeOriginal — to the second, in the camera's local time zone. Plus OffsetTime on newer iOS, which tells you the time zone.
• Software — iOS version, Android build, or editing app ("Photoshop 25.2"). Fingerprints a device silently.
• Artist / Copyright / OwnerName — if the camera is registered to a person, this can carry their real name.
• ThumbnailImage — a tiny (160 px) JPEG of the original before editing. The infamous 2003 Cat Schwartz incident: she cropped herself out of a photo, posted it, and the uncropped thumbnail was still inside the file.

A visual map of the damage

Who strips and who leaks, in one table

Why our tools strip by default

Every image you run through a FireConvertApp tool — compress, resize, convert, upscale, remove background — comes out with zero EXIF. Not opt-in. Not a checkbox. Default behaviour.

There are two reasons this was the right call:

1. The files never leave your machine anyway. Our image tools are in-browser; we can't see what's inside them, so we can't be the party leaking them. But the output is what you send next, and that's where EXIF spreads. Stripping on pass means the thing you email, Slack, or Discord next is clean.
2. Rotation is the only tag we preserve — by rotating the pixels. Most converters that "strip EXIF" also strip the orientation flag, which is how iPhone JPEGs signal "this is sideways." The result: your photo lands upright at the source but sideways on the destination. We rotate the actual pixels to match, then drop the tag. Orientation survives the strip.

The alternatives, honestly

ExifTool (by Phil Harvey)

The gold standard. Free, open-source, Perl-based, command-line. Handles every EXIF dialect (including Maker Notes, which most other tools silently skip). Install it and run exiftool -all= photo.jpg to strip everything, or exiftool -gps:all= photo.jpg to remove just GPS. If you're a Mac or Linux power user, this is the right answer. Windows users download a .exe. Doesn't have a GUI by default.

Mat2 (Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit)

Open-source, focused specifically on privacy. Strips EXIF and also Office document metadata, PDF metadata, and audio tags. Has a CLI and a GNOME desktop integration. If you're on Tails, Qubes, or another privacy-focused Linux distro, Mat2 is often pre-installed. On Windows it's less smooth — usually via WSL.

Windows "Remove properties" dialog

Right-click a JPG in File Explorer → Properties → Details → "Remove Properties and Personal Information." Creates a copy with most metadata stripped. Catches the common tags. Misses some maker notes and the embedded thumbnail on certain files. Good enough for casual use; not bullet-proof.

macOS Preview

File → Export → uncheck "Include EXIF data." Preview strips EXIF but also re-encodes the JPEG, which is a small generational loss. Fine for social media. Not ideal if you want the pixels untouched.

Honest compare

How to verify your file is clean

The simplest check that doesn't require any install: upload the output to exifdata.com (or similar). If it reports "no EXIF data found," you're clean. If you want to do it offline, right-click the file on Windows → Properties → Details. An empty Details tab means no EXIF.

Or just run it through our JPEG compressor, our resize tool, or JPG to PNG converter — all three strip by default, so if your input had EXIF, the output won't.

Edge cases worth knowing

HEIC carries EXIF too

HEIC is a newer container (HEIF), but it holds the same EXIF structure inside. If you're sending iPhone photos directly without converting, the GPS and serial travel with them. Our HEIC to JPG tool strips on pass.

PNG has its own metadata (tEXt, iTXt, eXIf chunks)

PNG doesn't carry traditional EXIF, but modern PNG spec added an eXIf chunk, and most camera apps now write it. Our PNG tools strip these chunks too.

Screenshots usually have no GPS

Screenshots inherit metadata from the OS, not the camera. iPhone screenshots carry a timestamp and the device model but no GPS. Android screenshots usually have even less. Still worth stripping for the timestamp, especially if you're sharing something time-sensitive.

Facebook Messenger is not Facebook

Facebook the main app strips EXIF. Messenger attachments (the "paperclip send as file" path, not photo-send) often don't. If you send a photo via the camera-roll picker, it gets cleaned. If you attach it as a file, it often doesn't.

Common questions

Is EXIF leaking actually dangerous?

Depends on the context. A photo of your cat in your kitchen published publicly carries your home address. A photo taken at your office carries your employer. A photo of a protest carries the identity of anyone photographed with precise GPS. For most people most of the time: low-grade leak. For activists, journalists, domestic-violence survivors, or anyone in witness protection: operationally critical.

My camera says "location off." Am I safe?

Usually. If location services are disabled for the camera app, no GPS tags get written. But other EXIF (camera serial, timestamp, software version) still does. "Location off" solves the worst leak but not all of them.

Will stripping EXIF change my photo's quality?

No. EXIF lives in a metadata block that doesn't touch pixel data. Stripping it just removes the sidecar. If a tool also re-encodes the JPEG (like Preview), there's a small generational loss — but that's the re-encode, not the strip. Our compress-jpeg tool with quality=100 and EXIF strip is bit-for-bit the same pixels minus the metadata.

Does this remove the photo from search engines?

No. Search engines don't index EXIF. They index where the photo was published. Stripping EXIF stops future leaks; it doesn't un-leak past ones. For that you need the publishing site's takedown flow.

Can I bulk-strip a folder of photos?

Yes. Our JPEG compressor accepts multi-file drop, and each file gets stripped independently. For 1000+ files at once, ExifTool from the command line is faster (no browser memory ceiling). For 1–200 files, in-browser is fine.

What about RAW files (.CR2, .NEF, .ARW)?

RAW formats carry an even larger metadata payload (including the embedded JPEG thumbnail, which is usually full-size, not 160 px). ExifTool handles RAW; our in-browser tools don't touch RAW directly — you'd convert to JPEG first, which strips in the process.

Ready?

Strip EXIF from your photo now →. In-browser, no sign-up, no watermark. Your file doesn't leave your machine — so the only EXIF that leaks is what you send next, and after this, there won't be any.