Remove GPS and camera data before you share photos

Strip EXIF metadata — GPS location, camera model, timestamps — from a batch of photos offline, then verify nothing is left before you share.

Level: beginner3 minOffline: YesFreemac-arm, mac-intel, windows, linuxUpdated 2026-09-26App version 1.10.0

Your progress

Strip the hidden metadata from photos before sharing them — every JPEG your camera produces can carry a GPS pin, the camera model, and exact timestamps. 1FileTool's Strip Metadata removes all of it offline, in a batch.

What you'll need

  • 1FileTool installed
  • Four sample photos below — each carries a fake GPS tag we wrote in for practice

remove-gps-from-photos.zip

Sample files · 428.4 KB

Download sample files
  • photo-bottle.jpg107.6 KB
  • photo-mug.jpg106.0 KB
  • photo-plant.jpg130.6 KB
  • photo-sneaker.jpg114.8 KB

Protect your originals first

Replace source is ON by default: the output overwrites the original file and no backup is kept. Before following along, open Settings › General and turn Replace source off, or pick a separate output folder.

Steps

1. See what a photo leaks

Before stripping, look at what is inside. On macOS open a sample photo in Preview › Tools › Show Inspector › GPS; on Windows right-click it › Properties › Details. The samples report a fictional camera (FictiCam FC-100) and a pinned location we invented — yours will show real ones.

2. Open Strip Metadata

In the app, open Privacy Tools › Strip Metadata ("Strip metadata from one or more files"). The drop zone reads "Processed on this Mac, never uploaded" — or "this PC" — which is the whole point of doing this locally.

3. Drop the photos

Drop all four sample photos at once. Strip Metadata handles images and PDFs in the same batch, so mixed drops work too.

4. Turn Replace source off

Leave the Replace source toggle off for this run so the stripped copies land in your output folder as new files, and the originals stay put until you're sure.

5. Run it

Press Run on 4 files. The stripped files appear in the output folder under the same names — each one re-encoded with all EXIF, XMP and IPTC data removed, including the GPS block. For a single photo, Privacy Tools › Image EXIF Stripper does the same thing and names the output clean_<name>.

6. Verify it is gone

Drop a stripped copy into the EXIF reader below — it should now report "No EXIF segment found." That's the check worth doing before every share.

The result

Four photos stripped of every metadata field — camera, software, dates, and the GPS coordinates — in one run. The photo itself looks identical; the file is re-encoded once at high JPEG quality, which is what drops the metadata.

Want to see the difference before you run it? Load photo-mug.jpg from the sample ZIP in the in-browser EXIF reader first, then load the stripped output:

Try it in your browser

This tool also runs in the browser. Try it here first, then do a whole folder at once in the app.

Try View EXIF Online

Real Browser Processing

No files selected

Original

Select image files to start

Result

Run tool to read image metadata

Processing happens locally in your browser. The desktop app adds more formats, better performance on very large files, and advanced automation.

If it didn't work

  • A file type was skipped: Strip Metadata handles images (JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, HEIC) and PDFs; other formats are reported on the result card.
  • The originals changed: Replace source was on — the stripped output replaced each file in place. That's sometimes what you want, but keep a copy first.
  • PNG or HEIC output changed size a lot: stripping re-encodes the file (HEIC becomes JPEG), so bytes shift even though the pixels look identical.
  • You want the metadata gone from a PDF: the same screen removes title, author and dates from PDFs in the same batch — drop them together.

Try next

Photos aren't the only leak — PDFs carry author names and edit history too. The same Strip Metadata screen handles them, and Redact PII from a PDF goes further for document contents.

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