Photo metadata: what your pictures reveal and how to remove it
Updated October 9, 2026 · By Lee Palmer
Every photo you take with a phone or camera carries hidden information alongside the picture. Most of the time it is useful: it lets your gallery sort photos by date and place. When you share a photo with strangers, though, it can reveal more than you intend, including where you live.
What is stored in a photo
- Location: GPS latitude and longitude, often accurate to a few metres, when location access is enabled for the camera.
- Date and time: when the photo was taken, to the second.
- Device: the make and model of the phone or camera, sometimes the lens and a serial number.
- Settings: exposure, aperture, ISO, flash and focal length.
- Editing data: software names, edit history, captions, keywords and sometimes the author’s name, added by editing apps as XMP or IPTC data.
- Extra images: some phones attach a preview, a depth map or the short video from a motion photo after the main picture.
Who can see it?
Anyone who receives the original file can read the metadata with a free app or the file properties on their computer. Many large social networks remove location data when they process uploads, but plenty of routes pass the original file on: email attachments, files sent as documents in messaging apps, cloud storage links, forums, marketplaces and personal websites. Policies also change, so it is safer to clean a photo yourself before sharing it with people you do not know.
How to remove it
The metadata remover shows what a JPEG, PNG or WebP contains, including the GPS coordinates, and saves a clean copy without re-compressing the picture. The image stays on your device throughout. Any of our other tools, such as the resizer, cropper or converter, also produce files without the original metadata, because they draw a fresh image.
Stop location being added in the first place
On most phones you can stop the camera recording location. On an iPhone, open Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services, then Camera, and choose Never. On Android, open the Camera app’s settings and turn off the location tag option; the exact name varies by manufacturer. Both systems also let you turn off location for a single photo when you share it from the Photos or Gallery app. Turning location off means your own gallery can no longer show photos on a map, so some people prefer to leave it on and clean photos before sharing.
Metadata is not the only clue
Removing metadata does not change what the picture shows. House numbers, street signs, car registration plates, school uniforms, distinctive views and reflections can all give away a location. Screenshots can show names, account numbers and notifications. Look carefully at the image itself, and use the block text tool to cover anything you would not want a stranger to see.
When to keep metadata
Keep your original photos with their metadata for your own records. Dates and places help with organising, and camera data matters to photographers. Some uses, such as insurance claims, legal evidence or competitions, may require the original file unchanged. Clean a copy for sharing and keep the original safe.