EXIF Viewer & Remover

Every photo from a phone or camera carries a block of metadata alongside the picture, called EXIF. It records the camera and lens, the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, the exact date and time — and, if location services were on, the GPS coordinates of where you were standing. Drop photos here to see all of it in plain English, then download clean copies with the metadata removed before you post, sell, or send them.

The files never leave your device: the metadata is parsed by this page's own code in your browser, nothing is uploaded, and the map link for a photo's location is only opened if you click it.

What it shows

• Location — GPS latitude and longitude as decimal coordinates you can copy, with altitude, camera direction, and accuracy when recorded, and a link to the spot on OpenStreetMap.
• Camera — make, model, lens, and the serial numbers and owner name some cameras embed.
• Exposure — shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length (with the 35 mm equivalent), exposure compensation, flash, metering, and white balance.
• Date and time — when the photo was taken, digitized, and last modified, with the time-zone offset newer phones record.
• Image and software — orientation, pixel dimensions, color space, the editing software, artist and copyright fields, and whether a thumbnail preview is embedded (it can show the photo as it was before a crop).
• Everything else — every EXIF tag in a full table, the XMP packet editors like Lightroom write, and a list of each metadata block with its size: IPTC captions, ICC color profiles, comments, and PNG text chunks.

It reads JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC/HEIF (iPhone photos), and TIFF, including camera RAW files that use TIFF structure such as DNG.

Removing metadata without losing quality

Most "EXIF removers" re-save the photo, which strips the metadata but also recompresses the image. This one doesn't: for JPEG it copies the compressed image data byte-for-byte and simply leaves out the metadata segments — EXIF, XMP, IPTC/Photoshop, comments, the multi-picture index, and anything appended after the image such as HDR gain maps and depth maps. PNG text and EXIF chunks and WebP EXIF and XMP chunks are dropped the same way. The clean copy is pixel-identical to the original and slightly smaller.

Two things are kept by default, and both can be turned off in Options: the orientation, rewritten as a tiny EXIF block containing nothing else, so portrait photos don't come out sideways; and the ICC color profile, which only describes the color space and keeps wide-color photos from looking dull.

Example

IMG_2207.jpg  3.1 MB — an iPhone photo taken at home

Location   51.507351, -0.127758  (12 m above sea level)
Camera     Apple iPhone 15 Pro · back triple camera 6.765mm f/1.78
Exposure   1/120 s · f/1.8 · ISO 64 · 6.8 mm (24 mm in 35 mm terms)
Taken      2024-06-01 14:03:22 +01:00

Clean copy removes EXIF (14.2 KB), XMP (2.9 KB), Multi-picture index (MPF) (88 B),
Data after the image (e.g. HDR gain map, depth map) (412 KB)
→ IMG_2207-clean.jpg, 2.7 MB, image data untouched

Limitations

• HEIC and TIFF files can be inspected but not cleaned here, because removing their metadata safely means rebuilding the file. Convert a HEIC with HEIC to JPG, which removes all metadata by default.
• Manufacturer MakerNotes (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Apple…) are shown as a binary block, not decoded field by field. They are removed with the rest of the EXIF.
• Compressed PNG text chunks are listed but their text isn't decompressed.
• Metadata in other formats (GIF, AVIF, video files) isn't read.
• Removing metadata from the file doesn't remove it from copies already shared; and some sites re-add their own when you upload.

How do I see the EXIF data of a photo?

Drop the photo into the box above. The camera, lens, exposure settings, date taken, and GPS location appear in readable sections, and every raw EXIF tag is listed in the All EXIF tags table. Nothing is uploaded — the file is read by your browser.

How do I remove the location from a photo?

Add the photo, then use Download clean copy. The clean file has no GPS coordinates, camera details, or timestamps; only the orientation and color profile are kept by default, and neither identifies you. On an iPhone you can also turn off location for a single photo when sharing, via Options at the top of the share sheet.

Does removing EXIF data reduce image quality?

Not here. JPEG, PNG, and WebP files are cleaned by copying the compressed image data unchanged and leaving out the metadata blocks, so the picture is pixel-for-pixel identical. Tools that re-save the image to strip metadata recompress it and lose a little quality each time.

Do Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp remove EXIF data?

Most large social networks and messaging apps strip EXIF, including GPS, from the copy other people see — but they may still read and keep it themselves. Email attachments, cloud-drive links, marketplaces, forums, and messaging apps sending files as documents usually pass the original file through with its location intact.

Why does a photo show the wrong date or no date?

Date taken comes from the DateTimeOriginal tag, set by the camera's clock. If the clock was wrong, the date is wrong; if the photo was a screenshot, an edited export, or passed through an app that strips metadata, there is no date at all. File dates on your computer are separate and change whenever the file is copied.

What is the embedded thumbnail, and why does it matter?

Many cameras store a small JPEG preview inside the EXIF. Some editors crop or retouch the main image but leave the old thumbnail untouched, so it can reveal what was cropped out. Removing EXIF removes the thumbnail too.

Can I check the metadata of iPhone HEIC photos?

Yes — HEIC files are read directly, including their EXIF and XMP. To share a HEIC without metadata, convert it with the HEIC to JPG tool, which removes metadata unless you choose to keep it.