Quick start
- Choose your options. The defaults suit most photos: keep the color profile and keep the rotation tag. The reasons are explained below.
- Add your images. Drag files or a whole folder anywhere onto the page, or click the drop box. Cleaning starts at once.
- Check each result. Every row shows what the file contained, its size before and after, and a verdict from a re-scan of the cleaned copy. Open What was removed for the full list.
- Download. Use Download on one row, or Download all as ZIP for the batch. Cleaned files keep their name with
-cleanadded before the extension, so your originals are never overwritten.
Not sure what a file contains first? Open it in the Image Metadata Viewer, which lists every field, then come back here to remove them.
What gets removed
The cleaner walks through the file's structure and copies across only the parts needed to show the picture. Everything else is left behind.
| Format | Removed | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| JPEG | EXIF (camera, dates, GPS, thumbnail), XMP, IPTC and Photoshop blocks, comments, Content Credentials, multi-picture and other application data, and anything appended after the image | The picture data and tables, the JFIF header, the Adobe color marker, the color profile (option), a rotation-only EXIF block (option) |
| PNG | Text chunks (prompts, comments, XMP), EXIF, modification time, Content Credentials, other private chunks, and anything after the end of the image | Pixel data, palette, transparency, gamma, color space, physical size, animation chunks, the color profile (option), a rotation-only EXIF chunk (option) |
| WebP | EXIF, XMP, Content Credentials and unknown chunks | Pixel, alpha and animation chunks, the color profile (option), a rotation-only EXIF chunk (option) |
| GIF | Comments, plain-text blocks, XMP, Content Credentials and other application blocks | Frames, palettes, timing and the loop setting |
Why the picture itself does not change
Most online cleaners open the picture, redraw it and save it again, which compresses a JPEG a second time and costs a little quality. This one does not decode the picture at all. It reads the file's blocks, drops the metadata blocks and writes the rest out exactly as it found it. The compressed pixel data is copied byte for byte, so the image looks identical and there is no extra generation loss.
The result is also usually smaller than the original, since the metadata that was removed took up space. A camera JPEG with a large embedded preview and XMP block can shrink by tens of kilobytes. The What was removed list shows how many bytes each block used.
The options
Keep the color profile
An ICC color profile tells software how to interpret the colors. It holds no personal data, and removing it can make colors look slightly different, especially for pictures in wide-gamut spaces such as Display P3. It is on by default. Turn it off if you want a file with no extra blocks at all.
Keep the rotation tag
Phones often store a portrait photo sideways and add an Orientation value to the EXIF block, which tells viewers to turn it upright. If that tag is deleted, the picture shows sideways. With this option on, the cleaner removes the whole EXIF block and then writes back a tiny block that contains only the rotation value (26 bytes). It identifies nothing, and your photo stays upright. Turn it off if you want zero EXIF, and expect sideways pictures where the tag was needed.
Re-save other formats as
AVIF and BMP files cannot be cleaned in place by this tool. For those, the browser decodes the picture and saves it again as PNG (lossless, larger files) or JPEG (smaller files, re-compressed). The new file has no metadata, but unlike the four formats above the pixels are re-encoded. The rotation is applied during the re-save, so the picture comes out upright. TIFF works the same way only in browsers that can open TIFF pictures, which today means Safari. Elsewhere, convert the TIFF to PNG or JPEG first.
Checking the result
After each file is cleaned, the tool opens the new copy with the same reader that powers the metadata viewer and looks for EXIF, GPS, XMP, IPTC, text, Content Credentials, thumbnails and trailing data. A green verdict means the re-scan found none of them. It also confirms that the new file still opens as an image. If something remains, the row says what, instead of claiming success.
What metadata removal can't fix
- The picture's content. A street sign, a house number, a reflection or a recognizable landmark gives away a place with no metadata at all.
- File names and captions. A name like
home-garden-2025.jpgor a caption you type elsewhere is not inside the file's metadata. - Hidden pixel data. Text stored in the lowest bits of the pixels is part of the picture. A lossless copy keeps it. Saving as a JPEG destroys it.
- Watermarks. Visible logos and invisible pixel watermarks are not metadata, so they stay.
- Copies you already sent. Cleaning a file does nothing about versions that are already shared.
Before you strip everything
Metadata is not only a privacy risk. It also holds the copyright notice and creator credit that prove who made a picture, and Content Credentials that record how it was made. Removing it removes that evidence from the cleaned copy. Keep your original as your master file and share the cleaned copy. If you publish photos, you can add a copyright line back in an editor afterwards. Our guide on removing location data from photos covers the options on phones and computers, and the guide on Content Credentials and watermarks explains what is lost when credentials are stripped.
Formats it can't clean in place
HEIC pictures cannot be decoded by most browsers, so they cannot be cleaned or re-saved here. On an iPhone, you can export a JPEG from the Photos app with location turned off, then add the JPEG to this page. Files that are not images are skipped. Animated GIFs and animated WebP files keep all of their frames when cleaned.
Frequently asked questions
Will removing metadata reduce my picture quality?
Not for JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF. The picture data is copied byte for byte and never decoded or recompressed. Only AVIF and BMP files (and TIFF, in Safari) are re-saved through the browser, and for those you choose between lossless PNG and re-compressed JPEG.
Why did my photo turn sideways after cleaning elsewhere?
Cameras often store the rotation as an EXIF Orientation tag instead of rotating the pixels. A cleaner that deletes all EXIF also deletes that tag. This tool keeps a minimal rotation-only block by default so portrait photos still open upright.
Can I remove only the GPS location and keep the rest?
No. This tool removes everything in one pass. If you want to keep the camera details but drop the location, use your phone's sharing options to hide the location, as described in the guide on removing location data, or edit single fields in a desktop metadata editor.
Is Windows "Remove Properties and Personal Information" enough?
It can work, but check the result. Open the cleaned file in the metadata viewer and confirm that the Location group and the personal fields are gone, because behavior can differ by file type and Windows version.
Do screenshots need cleaning?
Usually not, since a screenshot has no camera or GPS data. It can still contain a color profile, a creation date or text from the tool that took it, so a quick look in the viewer settles it.