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How to remove EXIF data from a photo

There are two moments to do it: before taking the photo, so the location is never saved, and before sending it, to remove what it already carries.

In the browser, on any system

  1. Open exif.es and drop the photo, or click to choose it.
  2. Check what it carries. If you want to keep something, such as the date, press “Keep this” on that field.
  3. Press “Clean” and then “Download”: you get a clean copy and the original is left alone.

The photo is not uploaded anywhere, not recompressed and loses no quality. It works the same for videos, PDFs and Office documents, and for many files at once.

On iPhone

So new photos do not store the location: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → “Never”.

To remove the location from a photo you already have: open it in Photos, swipe up, tap “Adjust” next to the map and choose “No Location”.

When sharing: in the share sheet, tap “Options” under the number of selected photos and turn off “Location”. It is only removed for that share.

None of these removes the rest: the date, the phone model and the system version stay in the file.

On Android

So new photos do not store the location: open the camera app’s settings and turn off the location option. The name varies by manufacturer: “Location tags”, “Save location” or similar.

You can also take the location permission away from the camera: Settings → Apps → Camera → Permissions → Location → “Don’t allow”.

For a photo you already have, Google Photos can remove an estimated location, but not always the one the camera saved. The safest option is to clean the photo before sending it.

On Windows

  1. Right-click the photo and choose “Properties”.
  2. In the “Details” tab, click “Remove Properties and Personal Information”.
  3. Choose “Create a copy with all possible properties removed” and confirm.

It works with JPEG, but not with every format, and it does not always remove every block: XMP and the manufacturer’s maker note may stay behind.

On Mac

With Preview: open the photo, go to “Tools → Show Inspector”, info tab, and if it has a location, click “Remove Location Info”. It only removes the GPS.

With Photos: when exporting (“File → Export”), untick “Location Information”. You can also hide it with “Image → Location → Hide Location”.

With KillEXIF for Mac: drag in a photo or a folder and everything is cleaned, losslessly. You can leave folders watched so every new file is cleaned on its own.

WhatsApp, Telegram and social networks

When you send a photo as a photo on WhatsApp or Telegram, the app recompresses it and removes most of the metadata. But if you send it as a document or a file, the original travels with everything it carries.

Instagram, Facebook or X strip metadata from the image they publish, but they receive the original and can read it first. Email, cloud storage and file transfer services remove nothing.

The simple rule: if the location should not leave your phone, remove it before sending the photo.