DeveloTools

EXIF Scrubber

View hidden camera, GPS and software metadata in your photos, then download a clean copy with it permanently removed.

100% client-side

Drop a JPEG or PNG photo here, or browse files

Supports JPEG and PNG. Multiple files at once — each gets its own result card below.

No photos analyzed yet.

What is EXIF Scrubber?

Most photos from a phone or camera carry a lot more than pixels: the make and model of the device, the exact date and time, the software used to edit it, and — if location services were on — the precise GPS coordinates of where it was taken. EXIF Scrubber reads that embedded metadata so you can see exactly what a photo reveals, then produces a clean copy with it removed, without touching a single image pixel.

How to use EXIF Scrubber

  1. Drop a JPEG or PNG photo onto the panel above, or click to browse and select one (or several at once).
  2. Review the metadata found — camera info, dates, and GPS coordinates with a map link if present.
  3. Click "Download scrubbed image" to save a copy with that metadata stripped out.

How the metadata stripping works

A JPEG file is a sequence of length-prefixed marker segments (APP0, APP1, APP13, SOF, ...) followed by the actual compressed image scan data after the SOS marker. EXIF lives in an APP1 segment, IPTC in an APP13 segment — both entirely separate from the pixel data. This tool walks that segment structure, removes the APP1/APP13 segments, and reassembles the file with every other byte — critically, everything from SOS onward — copied unchanged. PNG is similar but simpler: metadata lives in dedicated tEXt/zTXt/iTXt/eXIf chunks that get cut out while the IHDR/IDAT/IEND chunks that hold the actual (already-lossless) image are left untouched.

Before:
  Camera make:    Canon
  Camera model:   EOS R6
  Date taken:     2025:11:03 14:22:01
  GPS coordinates: 40.712776°, -74.005974° (View on map)
  IPTC metadata block (APP13): Present, will be removed

After downloading the scrubbed copy:
  No EXIF, GPS or text metadata was found in this file.

This is different from the common "redraw it on a <canvas> and re-export" approach, which does discard metadata but also decodes and re-compresses a JPEG — a second generation of lossy compression, however slight. Cutting the metadata segments directly out of the byte stream removes the same information without re-encoding a single pixel.

Frequently asked questions

What metadata does this tool remove, and is it really lossless?

It removes EXIF (camera make/model, date, GPS), IPTC and text metadata by cutting the JPEG APP1/APP13 marker segments, or the PNG tEXt/zTXt/iTXt/eXIf chunks, directly out of the file's bytes. The actual compressed image data is copied byte-for-byte and never decoded or re-encoded, unlike redrawing the photo on a <canvas> and re-exporting it, which is a second generation of JPEG compression.

Can I see my photo's GPS location before removing it?

Yes. If the photo has embedded GPS coordinates, they're decoded to decimal latitude/longitude (correctly accounting for the North/South and East/West reference) with a link to view the exact spot on a map, before you download the cleaned copy.

Which file formats are supported?

JPEG and PNG in this version. HEIC and TIFF aren't supported yet — dropping an unsupported file shows a clear message instead of silently failing or producing a broken download.

Are my photos uploaded anywhere?

No. Every byte of parsing and stripping happens locally in your browser using the File API and DataView. Your photos, and everything embedded in them, never leave your device.

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