EXIF / Metadata Stripper
Remove EXIF, IPTC, XMP and ICC metadata from an image.
Overview
The EXIF / Metadata Stripper removes every embedded metadata block from an image — EXIF, IPTC, XMP and even the ICC colour profile — and returns a clean copy with only pixel data intact. Upload a photo, choose which classes of metadata to strip, and the re-encoded result is ready for download.
It is the right call before sharing photos publicly, posting screenshots that might leak GPS coordinates, or normalising assets that will be served by a CDN where every kilobyte counts. Compliance teams use it to remove EXIF and GPS data from JPEG images in bulk before publication.
How it works
JPEG metadata lives in named application markers — APP1 for EXIF and XMP, APP13 for IPTC, APP2 for ICC — placed between the start-of-image marker and the compressed scan data. The stripper rewrites the JPEG with the metadata markers omitted while leaving the entropy-coded image data byte-for-byte identical, so quality is unaffected.
For PNGs the equivalent of metadata lives in ancillary chunks such as tEXt, iTXt, eXIf and iCCP. The stripper walks the chunk list and drops anything that isn't structurally required (IHDR, IDAT, IEND, plus colour-critical chunks unless you also opt to drop iCCP). The CRC is recomputed for the new chunk sequence so the output passes every validator.
Examples
Before: holiday.jpg (3.2 MB, EXIF with GPS, ICC profile, XMP rating).
After: holiday-clean.jpg (3.1 MB, no metadata).
Before: screenshot.png (1.4 MB, iTXt comment + iCCP sRGB profile).
After: screenshot-clean.png (1.4 MB, only IHDR/IDAT/IEND/tRNS).
Before: portrait.tiff with copyright IPTC tags.
After: portrait-clean.tiff with pixels untouched and no descriptive metadata.
FAQ
Does stripping metadata change image quality?
No. The compressed pixel data is preserved verbatim — the rewrite only touches the metadata containers around it.
Will my GPS coordinates definitely be removed?
Yes. GPS sits inside the EXIF GPSInfo IFD; dropping the EXIF marker takes the coordinates with it. Confirm by reopening in the EXIF Viewer tool.
Should I also strip the ICC profile?
Only if the recipient platform always assumes sRGB. Removing ICC saves a few KB but may shift colours slightly in wide-gamut displays.
Does it handle HEIC or RAW files?
The stripper targets JPEG, PNG, WebP and TIFF. RAW formats have proprietary metadata containers and are best handled by the camera vendor's tooling.
Are timestamps removed too?
Yes — DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate, ModifyDate and equivalent XMP fields all live inside the stripped containers.