How to use
Drop a JPEG / HEIC / TIFF image and the EXIF tags appear in a table — camera make and model, lens, focal length, ISO, shutter speed, aperture, GPS coordinates (if your phone or camera records them), software, original capture date, edit date. Click "Strip" to download a copy of the file with all EXIF metadata removed; the visible image stays identical. A "Strip GPS only" option keeps the photographic metadata for portfolio purposes but removes the location.
Reach for this before sharing a photo on the open web — most consumer photo uploads (iPhone, Pixel, recent Galaxy) include GPS coordinates accurate to within 5 meters, so a casual "lunch" photo shared on a blog or forum reveals your home or workplace address. Major social networks (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) strip EXIF on upload, but file hosts, direct email attachments, Discord, Slack file sharing, and Markdown blog posts usually preserve it. This tool runs entirely in the browser via `exifr` (read) and a custom strip routine (write) — your photo never uploads.
Examples
iPhone photo with GPS
Input
file: IMG_4521.HEIC (3.2 MB)
Output
Make: Apple
Model: iPhone 15 Pro
Software: iOS 26.4.1
Focal length: 6.86 mm (~24 mm equiv.)
ISO: 80
Shutter: 1/120 s
Aperture: f/1.78
Flash: Off, did not fire
Date taken: 2026:04:12 13:47:23
GPS: 37.5325° N, 127.0247° E (Seoul, near Yongsan)
GPS altitude: 45.3 m
Orientation: Rotate 90° CW
A typical iPhone export. The GPS coordinates pin the photo to within ~5 meters of where it was taken — pasting them into Google Maps tells you it was taken near Yongsan station in Seoul. The orientation tag tells the viewer the sensor was held sideways; without it, the photo would display rotated. Strip the GPS before sharing this on a blog; keep the rest if you want camera nerd readers to see the exposure settings.
Stripped output — same image, no metadata
Input
file: IMG_4521.HEIC (3.2 MB, with EXIF)
action: Strip All
Output
IMG_4521-clean.HEIC (3.18 MB, no EXIF)
• Camera info removed
• GPS removed
• Timestamps removed
• Software fingerprint removed
Stripping reduces the file by 10–30 KB typically — EXIF blocks are small relative to image bytes. The pixel content is byte-identical; only the metadata container is rewritten. Be aware that some viewers re-encode JPEGs when they "save as," which would change pixel data; this tool does not re-encode, so the photographic content is preserved exactly.
Lens and exposure for portfolio photography
Input
file: portfolio-shot.jpg (Sony A7R V)
Output
Make: SONY
Model: ILCE-7RM5
Lens: FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II
Focal length: 35 mm
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/200 s
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure mode: Manual
White balance: Auto
Color space: Adobe RGB
Date taken: 2026:03:18 16:12:08
A pro mirrorless body records far richer EXIF than a phone — lens information (`FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II` here), color space (Adobe RGB vs sRGB matters for print), exposure mode, white balance, and metering details. Photography portfolios on Flickr, 500px, and PhotoShelter display these tags as the credibility signal of "the photographer knows their settings". Stripping completely sacrifices this — `Strip GPS only` is the right balance for portfolio uploads.
FAQ
Why is GPS in my photos a privacy issue?
Smartphone cameras tag photos with the GPS coordinates of where they were taken, accurate to within 3–10 meters depending on satellite reception. Sharing photos from home, work, the gym, or your child's school over time creates a precise pattern of your daily life that someone reading the metadata can extract with a single click. The 2012 incident where John McAfee was located by a Vice journalist who shared his photo metadata is a textbook example. Public web posts (blogs, forums, file hosts) are the high-risk surface; major social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) strip EXIF on upload but file-direct shares (email, Discord, Slack public channels) usually preserve it.
Does HEIC have the same metadata as JPEG?
Mostly the same fields, different container. JPEG embeds EXIF in an `APP1` segment within the JPEG file structure; HEIC stores it in a separate `meta` box at the start of the HEIF container. The tags themselves (`GPSLatitude`, `Model`, `ExposureTime`) are the same standard, so the same viewer works on both. iPhones since iOS 11 use HEIC by default for storage but emit JPEG when sharing through most apps; the EXIF travels with whichever format leaves the device.
What about XMP and IPTC — are those metadata too?
Yes, three standards layer in modern photos. **EXIF** (Exchangeable Image File, 1995) is the camera-original metadata — make, model, ISO, GPS. **IPTC** (International Press Telecommunications Council, 1979 origin) carries editorial metadata — caption, copyright, location text, keywords; used by photojournalism and stock photo agencies. **XMP** (Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform, 2001) is the newer Adobe-standard format that supersets the other two and is used by Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge to track edits, ratings, color tags. A strip operation should remove all three or you leave information behind; this tool aims to remove all EXIF / IPTC / XMP unless you choose a partial strip.
Why does my "stripped" file still show data in some viewers?
Two common causes. **Inferred metadata** — some viewers show image dimensions, color depth, and color profile by reading the actual image data, not the EXIF block. Those are not metadata in the privacy sense; they are inherent to the pixels. **Different metadata layers** — the strip removes EXIF / IPTC / XMP, but image-format-specific data (JPEG quantization tables, color management ICC profiles, JFIF version) remains because those are needed for the image to render correctly. If your viewer reports "metadata still present", check whether it is the actual content (image size, color profile) or text fields that survived.
Do thumbnails contain hidden information?
Yes — and historically this leaked. EXIF includes an embedded thumbnail (a small JPEG inside the EXIF block) that some editors *did not* update when the main image was cropped or color-corrected. Photos that looked anonymized in the main view kept the un-edited version in the thumbnail; tools like ExifTool could recover sensitive content. This tool strips embedded thumbnails along with everything else. The general guidance: always strip metadata fully rather than try to edit individual fields, because partial edits are where leakage happens.
Will the tool round-trip the image without quality loss?
Yes — the strip is structural, not a re-encode. The tool reads the file as bytes, finds the EXIF block boundary, removes those bytes, and writes the rest verbatim. The actual image data (JPEG DCT coefficients, HEIC HEVC bitstream) is untouched, so the resulting pixels are byte-identical to the original. Some image editors (Apple Photos, Lightroom export) re-encode on save, which would shift pixel values; this tool does not. Tested against Adobe Acrobat and ExifTool, the stripped output decodes to the same pixel grid as the input.
Related concepts
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format, JEITA 1995, current 2.32 as of 2023) is the standard for embedding camera-origin metadata in JPEG and TIFF files. The format reuses TIFF's tagged-image structure — each field has a numeric tag ID, a data type, and a value — and lives inside a JPEG `APP1` segment or a TIFF root IFD. About 200 standard tags exist (camera make, lens info, exposure, GPS, datetime); manufacturers add proprietary tags under "MakerNote" sections that only their software can fully decode (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax all do this).
Three standards layer on top of EXIF in real-world files. **IPTC** (1979) is the photojournalism standard for caption, byline, copyright, location text, keywords; older but still used by news agencies and stock libraries. **XMP** (Adobe, 2001) is an XML-based metadata framework that supersets EXIF and IPTC, used by Adobe products to track every edit Lightroom or Photoshop applies. **ICC color profiles** carry the color-space information needed to render colors correctly across devices — not "metadata" in the privacy sense, but technically a separate embedded block.
Three adjacent ideas matter for understanding privacy implications. **Social network EXIF stripping** varies by platform: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter strip on upload; Discord and Slack mostly preserve; email attachments preserve; cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive) preserves the file as-is. **HEIC and HEIF** (the iPhone default since iOS 11) put EXIF in a separate container box rather than embedded in the image stream — different bytes, same fields. **Steganography** is a separate concern where bits are hidden inside the image data itself, not in metadata; EXIF stripping does not address steganography because steg payloads survive lossless format conversions but not lossy ones. For genuinely confidential photos, re-encode to a different lossy format after stripping; pixel-level traces from one capture session can survive metadata removal in obscure ways (sensor noise patterns are unique per camera and have been used in forensic identification).
