Remove EXIF data and GPS location from photos
Open a photo above and the Metadata panel lists what is hidden inside it: where it was taken, when, on which camera, often the camera’s serial number. Download it, and you get the same picture with none of that attached — and CropShrink reads the downloaded file back to prove it.
The photo never leaves your device while this happens. That matters more here than anywhere else on the site. Most EXIF removers ask you to upload the photo first, which means handing a stranger’s server the exact location data you were trying to get rid of.
What a photo can reveal about you
EXIF is a block of data that cameras and phones write into every JPEG alongside the picture. Nothing about it is visible when you look at the photo, and most people never see it at all. Typical contents:
| Field | Example | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| GPS location | 49.0500° N, 113.9000° W | Pinpoints where the photo was taken, often to within a few metres — a home, a school, a child’s bedroom. |
| Date and time | 2019-05-11 06:30 | Combined with the location, a routine: where you are, and when. |
| Camera make and model | Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | Narrows down who took it. |
| Serial number | 022021007062 | Identifies one physical camera, and links every photo it has ever taken. |
| Author, owner, copyright | A name | Often filled in once in the camera’s settings and then written into every file. |
| Software | Lightroom Classic 8.3.1 | Shows the photo was edited, and with what. |
| Thumbnail | A small preview | Some editors have left the uncropped original in the thumbnail after a crop. |
Alongside EXIF there can be two other blocks: XMP, which editing software like Lightroom uses for ratings, keywords and edit history, and IPTC, the captions and credits news agencies use. The panel reports those too.
The sample photo behind the Try a photo with GPS data button is a real one: a Glacier National Park photograph of Waterton Lakes, carrying its camera’s own EXIF, serial number included. The original has no location in it, so we added the park’s approximate coordinates to give the panel something to find.
Why uploading a photo to remove its location makes no sense
The point of stripping metadata is that nobody else learns what is in it. A remover that works by upload receives the complete file — GPS coordinates, timestamp, serial number — before it removes anything. You then have to trust that the service deletes the original, keeps no logs of it, and is who it says it is. There is no way to check any of that from the outside.
Here there is nothing to trust. The file is read by the page already open in your browser, the clean copy is built in your browser’s memory, and the download comes from there. You can confirm it yourself with the Network-tab check: editing a photo sends nothing anywhere.
How the metadata is removed
CropShrink does not edit the metadata out of your file. It builds a new file from the picture alone. The photo is drawn onto a canvas — which holds pixels and nothing else — and the browser’s own encoder turns those pixels into a fresh JPEG, PNG or WebP. There is no step at which the old metadata could be copied across, so everything goes: EXIF, GPS, XMP, IPTC and comments.
Claiming that is easy, so the editor checks it. After every export it reads the new file with the same parser that read the original, and the panel changes to REMOVED only when that parser finds nothing. If a browser ever wrote something into the export, the panel would name it instead.
This page opens the editor tuned for the job: the output format follows the input, so a JPEG stays a JPEG, and quality is set to 92, high enough that the one extra round of compression is not visible. For a file that must not change at all, choose PNG, which is lossless but larger.
What else changes, and what doesn’t
- Orientation is kept. Phones often store a photo sideways and use an EXIF tag to say which way is up. Browsers apply that tag when they open the photo, so the rotation ends up in the pixels and the photo stays upright without it.
- Colours are converted to sRGB. The embedded colour profile is dropped with everything else. For most photos that changes nothing you can see; a photo shot in a wide-gamut space such as Display P3 can lose some of its most saturated shades.
- The file can come out slightly larger. Removing a kilobyte of metadata is outweighed by saving at quality 92, which is often higher than the camera’s own setting. If size matters too, lower the quality slider — the metadata stays gone either way.
- It is all or nothing. You cannot keep the copyright notice and drop the location. If you need to keep selected fields, use a desktop tool such as ExifTool.
- One photo at a time. There is no batch mode yet.
Stop your phone recording location in the first place
Stripping works after the fact. You can also stop the location being written at all:
- iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never. To remove it from a single photo as you share it, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and switch off Location.
- Android: open the Camera app’s settings and turn off the option called Location tags, Save location or similar — the name varies by manufacturer.
Neither touches photos you have already taken; for those, strip them here before sharing.
Questions about removing metadata
Does removing EXIF data reduce the quality of the photo?
Not visibly. The photo is saved again, and a JPEG at quality 92 is indistinguishable from the original at normal viewing sizes. If you need the pixels untouched, choose PNG in the Compress panel: it is lossless, but the file will be several times larger.
Does this remove the location from iPhone photos?
Yes, for the JPEG you get when you share or export from the Photos app. HEIC files straight from the camera roll open in Safari but in few other browsers; if yours will not open, share it as a JPEG first, or use the Options switch in the share sheet.
Can I remove the GPS location but keep the other EXIF data?
Not with CropShrink. It rebuilds the file from pixels alone, so every field goes. That is the safest default when you are sharing a photo, but if you need to keep a copyright notice or camera settings, a desktop tool such as ExifTool can delete fields one by one.
Do Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp remove EXIF data?
The large platforms generally strip metadata from the copy other people see, but they receive your original, location included, when you upload it. Sending a photo as a file or document, rather than as a photo, usually keeps its metadata intact, and so do email attachments and cloud-storage links. Stripping it yourself first means nobody gets it.
How can I check whether a photo has location data?
Open it in the editor above. The Metadata panel lists everything it finds, starting with the location if there is one. Nothing is uploaded, so it is safe to check a photo you are unsure about.
More image tools
Every one of these is the same editor, opened for a different job — and all of them run on your device.
- Compress an imageShrink a photo for the web, an email or an upload form.
- Resize an imageChange the pixel dimensions with Lanczos3, Catmull-Rom or Mitchell.
- Crop an imageTrim to what matters, freeform or to a fixed ratio.
- PNG to WebPSame picture, same transparency, a fraction of the bytes.
Or start from the full editor, which does all of it at once.