Remove EXIF data from a JPEG
Drop a JPEG below to see its GPS coordinates, camera model, body serial number and capture date, then download a copy with them deleted. The compressed image data is copied across untouched, so the picture is not re-compressed.
Nothing is uploaded. The inspector runs in a frame that the browser blocks from opening any network connection at all.
How a JPEG stores metadata
A JPEG is not one blob. It is a chain of marker segments — each one a two-byte marker, a length, and a payload — ending in the entropy-coded image data. Metadata sits in the application segments near the front:
| Segment | Holds | What happens to it |
|---|---|---|
| APP0 | JFIF pixel density | Kept — display geometry |
| APP1 (Exif) | GPS, camera, serial, date | Deleted, orientation preserved |
| APP1 (XMP) | Editing history, credit | Deleted |
| APP2 (ICC) | Colour profile | Kept — colour accuracy |
| APP13 | Photoshop / IPTC creator, copyright | Deleted |
| APP14 (Adobe) | Colour transform | Kept — dropping it shifts colours |
| COM | Free-text comment | Deleted |
Because those segments are addressable and self-describing, deleting them is a byte operation. Nothing goes near the entropy-coded data. If the structure contains anything unexpected, this tool aborts the rewrite and leaves your file alone rather than guessing.
The XMP packet that grows the file
A JPEG that has had its metadata "removed" and came back larger is a common and confusing result. It happens when a tool rewrites the file through a system imaging library instead of editing the container directly.
On macOS, ImageIO's lossless path writes a new XMP packet padded to roughly 2.4 KB of mostly whitespace, plus an empty Photoshop block, and hands back a bigger file than it was given. That is a strange result for a tool whose entire job is taking things out — and a sign the metadata was rewritten rather than deleted.
The thumbnail nobody strips
Most JPEGs from a camera contain a second, smaller copy of the image embedded in the EXIF block — the thumbnail your file browser shows without decoding the full picture. It has its own metadata directory, and it can carry its own GPS coordinates.
Tools that strip the main EXIF tags and stop there can leave that thumbnail in place, along with its coordinates, and report the file as clean. This tool checks the thumbnail separately and tells you when it finds location data hiding in one.
Check it yourself
Do not take a stripper's word for it, including this one's. Drop the cleaned file back into the tool above. Anything still in there will be listed. That round trip is worth doing once with whatever tool you normally use.
Questions
- Does removing EXIF from a JPEG re-compress it?
- It does not have to, and here it does not. A JPEG is a sequence of marker segments followed by compressed image data. Metadata lives in its own segments, so those segments can be deleted whole and the compressed data copied across byte for byte. The image is never decoded, so it is never re-compressed.
- Why is my stripped JPEG sometimes larger than the original?
- Because some tools rewrite the file through an image library rather than editing the container. Apple's ImageIO, for example, writes a fresh XMP packet padded out to roughly 2.4 KB of whitespace plus an empty Photoshop block, so a file that had metadata removed comes out bigger than it went in. Deleting the segments directly avoids this.
- Will my photo be rotated after stripping?
- No. The rotation flag lives in EXIF alongside the GPS coordinates, so deleting EXIF outright turns photos on their side. This tool reads the orientation value before deleting the block and writes back a minimal EXIF segment containing that one tag and nothing else — no GPS, no camera, no date.
- What is left in the JPEG afterwards?
- The JFIF density header, the ICC colour profile if there was one, the Adobe colour transform marker if present, and the orientation flag. All four describe how to display the image correctly and none of them identify you. The tool lists what it kept so a deliberate decision does not read as an oversight.
When the browser is the wrong tool
If you are stripping a folder of JPEGs rather than a few, the browser is the wrong shape for the job.
Nothing Personal for Mac does two things this page cannot. It reads the download history macOS attaches to a file — where you saved it from — which lives outside the image and is invisible to any browser. And it handles folders rather than a handful of files, from Finder, without opening anything.