About the Photo Location & Metadata Scrubber
Every photo from a phone carries a second, invisible document: where it was taken to within a few metres, which way the camera faced, the exact second, your time zone, the phone model and software version, and on many cameras a serial number that ties every picture you have ever posted together. Edited files add the editing app, document IDs linking back to the original, and sometimes a thumbnail of the photo before you cropped it.
Drop a photo here and all of it is laid out, with the location on a map link. Then download a clean copy. The scrubber removes metadata losslessly: a JPEG keeps its picture and its metadata in separate segments, so the compressed image data is copied byte for byte and the metadata segments are left behind — nothing is decoded or re-compressed, and the page proves it by re-reading the result. Rotation is kept by default so portraits stay upright.
The file never leaves your device. It is read by your browser; the only thing downloaded is the open-source reading library. JPEG, PNG and WebP are cleaned losslessly; HEIC and AVIF can be inspected, and converted to a clean JPEG where your browser can decode them.
GPS, serial numbers, owner name, thumbnails, XMP, IPTC and maker notes are always removed.
Every tag in the file
How to Use the Photo Metadata Scrubber
Drop a photo onto the box or tap it to choose one. The file is read by your browser — there is no upload button because there is no upload. Read the Location card first: if it says Exact, anyone you send the original to can open it on a map. Then look through the findings for serial numbers, your name, and hidden extras. Press Download clean copy and share that file instead of the original. The line under the button is not decoration: it is the result of re-reading the clean file and comparing its image data with the original, byte for byte.
- Drop in a photo (or several, with a subscription, for a single zip).
- Check where it points and what else it carries.
- Leave Keep rotation on unless you need a file with no Exif block at all.
- Download the clean copy and share that.
What a Photo Records Without Asking
The EXIF standard was written for cameras in the 1990s and grew by accretion. A modern phone photo typically carries 50 to 150 tags. Most are harmless exposure settings. The ones that matter fall into five groups:
- Location: latitude, longitude, altitude, the compass direction the lens faced, speed, and the satellite time of the fix. Phones also record their own accuracy estimate.
- Identity of the device: make, model, software version and, on most dedicated cameras, a body serial number and a lens serial number. A serial number is the same in every photo that camera ever takes, which is how a photo on an anonymous account gets matched to one posted under a real name.
- Time: the capture time to the second and, since EXIF 2.31, the offset from UTC — which is your time zone, even when the location is off.
- People: an owner name set in the camera menu, an artist or copyright field, captions and keywords, and in press photos a full contact block with address and phone.
- History: which editor saved the file, document IDs that link every derived copy back to the original, and on some files a thumbnail that was never updated after a crop.
Where Metadata Survives, and Where It Doesn’t
| Where you send the photo | What usually happens to the metadata |
|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram, X public posts | Stripped from the public copy after the platform reads it |
| Email attachments | Delivered untouched |
| Cloud-drive share links, file-transfer services | Delivered untouched — it is a file copy |
| Messaging apps sent “as a file” or “original quality” | Usually untouched; the compressed “photo” mode often strips it |
| Marketplace listings, forums, small websites | Depends entirely on the site’s software; many keep it |
| AirDrop / Nearby Share | Untouched unless you turn location off in the share sheet options |
Platforms change their handling without notice, and the ones that strip EXIF still receive the original. The only guarantee is a file that does not contain the data in the first place.
Why “Lossless” Matters, and How It Is Checked
Most “remove EXIF” tools open the photo, decode it to pixels and save it again. That drops the metadata as a side effect, and it also re-compresses the picture — slightly softer each time, with a different file size and a different fingerprint. A JPEG is a sequence of marked segments: quantisation tables, Huffman tables, the frame header and the compressed scan data, interleaved with application segments (APP1 for Exif and XMP, APP13 for IPTC, APP2 for colour profiles and multi-picture data). This scrubber walks that sequence and copies everything the decoder needs byte for byte, leaving out the metadata segments and anything appended after the end-of-image marker, such as a motion-photo video.
The colour profile is kept deliberately: it identifies nothing and removing it can shift colours. The engine was checked against 93 real JPEGs — iPhone, Pixel and Galaxy photos and 45 camera models — by decoding every original and every cleaned file with an independent decoder: the pixels matched in every case. PNG text chunks (which is where AI image generators write their prompts) and WebP EXIF and XMP chunks are removed the same way.
What Scrubbing Cannot Remove
Metadata is only what the file says about itself. The picture still shows what it shows: the house number on the door behind you, the street sign, the view from your window, the distinctive tree at the end of the road. Volunteer geolocation communities routinely place photos with no metadata at all to within a few metres from shadows, skylines and shop fronts. Before posting anything taken at home, look at the edges of the frame. For the photos you have already shared, the Data Broker Opt-Out Planner covers the people-search sites that pair a face with an address.
Stop It at the Source
- iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never. When sharing one photo, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and turn off Location.
- Android: open the camera app’s settings and turn off location tags (the wording varies by maker); Google Photos also offers to remove location when sharing.
- Dedicated cameras: clear the owner name and copyright fields in the setup menu if you post pictures anonymously; the serial number cannot be turned off, only stripped.
Checking a QR code or a link someone sent with the photo? Use the QR Code Safety Scanner. To see what a website reports about you before you upload anything to it, run it through the Website Privacy X-Ray. Browse every Security & Privacy tool for more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Facebook, Instagram and X remove location from photos I upload?
The big social networks strip EXIF, including GPS, from the copy they show publicly, but they read it first and may keep it. Messaging apps, email attachments, cloud-drive share links, marketplace listings, forums and most small websites pass the original file through untouched, GPS and all. Scrubbing before you send is the only way to be sure, because you control what leaves your device.
How accurate is the GPS location stored in a photo?
Usually far more precise than people expect. Modern phones store coordinates to fractions of a metre, and the real limit is the fix itself: the US government says GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within 4.9 metres under open sky. That is enough to identify a single house, and many phones also record the direction the camera faced and the altitude.
Does removing EXIF data reduce photo quality?
Not with this tool. A JPEG stores metadata in separate segments from the compressed picture, so the scrubber copies the picture data byte for byte and simply leaves the metadata segments out. Tools that open the photo and save it again re-compress it, which does lose a little quality each time. The verification line under the download button confirms the image data is identical.
Why did my photo come out sideways after removing metadata?
Phones usually store the picture in the sensor's orientation and add an Orientation tag telling viewers to rotate it. Delete every tag and a portrait shot can display on its side. The Keep rotation option writes back a tiny Exif block holding only that one number, so the photo stays upright and nothing identifying remains.
Can a photo reveal where I live even without GPS?
Yes. Scrubbing metadata removes what is written in the file, not what is visible in the picture. House numbers, street signs, the view from a window, a car registration plate, a school logo or a distinctive landmark are how most photos are geolocated by people who know what they are doing. Check the background before posting.
