# EXIF Viewer & Remover — remove photo metadata

See what a photo says about you. Then take it out.

> See the EXIF and GPS data hidden in a photo, edit it, or strip the lot in one click. JPEG, PNG and WebP stay unencoded; AVIF cleaning converts to a new PNG. Nothing uploaded.

This is an interactive browser tool at https://abox.tools/exif-editor/. Files are processed on the device running that browser. Any deliberate sharing or optional network feature is described on the page. What follows is its written explanation; open the address to use it.

## Your photos are **processed in your browser**. No processing upload.

The file is opened, parsed and rewritten by your own browser. This tool has no network feature of any kind — nothing to fetch, nothing to send — and there is no server on the other end of this page to send a photo to even if there were.

- ✗ No upload
- ✗ No account
- ✓ Works offline
- ✓ Open source
- ✓ AVIF cleans to PNG; JPEG, PNG and WebP keep their encoding

## How to remove EXIF data from a photo

1. **Choose your photos.** Drop them onto the picker or select them by hand. They are read straight off your disk by the browser; nothing is sent anywhere while you do it.
2. **Read what is in them, if you want to.** The findings list names the things worth knowing about — the GPS position, the timestamps, the serial numbers — before the full table of every tag.
3. **Press "Remove all metadata".** For JPEG, PNG and WebP, every tag, the XMP and IPTC blocks, the comments and the embedded thumbnail all go across the batch. AVIF is decoded to a new PNG that copies no original metadata; inspect the result because colour and HDR can change.
4. **Or edit instead of removing.** For JPEG, PNG and WebP, change a date, correct a copyright line, drop the location and keep the camera settings — then save that photo on its own.

## The longer version

[What a photo says about you, and how to take it out](https://abox.tools/guides/remove-exif-and-gps-data/): A photo off a phone usually carries the exact spot it was taken, the time to the second, and the camera's serial number. What is in there, who can read it, and how to take it out without touching the picture.

## Also in the box

- [DICOM Viewer](https://abox.tools/dicom-viewer/): CT, MR, X-ray and ultrasound, with the window, the header and the measurements.
- [Image to ICO](https://abox.tools/image-to-ico/): One picture in. Every size a browser, Windows or a Mac asks for, out.
- [Image to Data URI](https://abox.tools/image-to-data-uri/): The whole picture as one line of text. Paste it straight into CSS or HTML.
- [SVG to Image](https://abox.tools/svg-to-image/): Name the size. A vector has none of its own to lose.

## Questions

### Is my photo uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is read, parsed and rewritten by your own browser on your own hardware. This tool has no network feature of any kind — it never fetches anything and never sends anything — and the page's `Content-Security-Policy` names every address it may contact, none of which belongs to this site.

### What is EXIF, and what else is hiding in a photo?

EXIF is a block of tags a camera writes beside the picture: the make and model, the exposure settings, the date and time to the second, often a GPS position, and sometimes a serial number. Photos frequently carry more besides — an XMP packet of XML from an editor, an IPTC block of caption and byline fields, a colour profile, a small second copy of the image as a thumbnail, and a maker note of undocumented manufacturer data. JPEG, PNG and WebP inventories list these blocks. AVIF shows available extracted EXIF only; other AVIF metadata is not inventoried.

### Does removing metadata reduce the image quality?

JPEG, PNG and WebP cleaning edits their containers and copies their compressed picture data byte for byte, without decoding or recompressing it. AVIF cleaning instead decodes the first image and writes a new lossless PNG without copying original metadata. That PNG may be larger, and the browser's decoding can change HDR or colour representation. The original file stays unchanged.

### Which file formats does it handle?

JPEG, PNG and WebP support metadata viewing, editing and container cleaning. AVIF supports a preview of available extracted EXIF and cleaning to a new PNG; AVIF tags are read-only and other metadata is not inventoried. Animated AVIF uses the first image. HEIC and bare TIFF are recognised but not rewritten. Convert HEIC first when needed.

### Will my photo appear rotated after the metadata is removed?

For JPEG, PNG and WebP, keeping the orientation tag writes a small EXIF block containing only that tag when needed. Turn the option off to drop it. AVIF cleaning uses the browser's upright decoded image and creates a PNG; the orientation and colour-profile checkboxes apply only to JPEG, PNG and WebP.

### Does it remove the GPS location?

Cleaning removes the original location metadata. For JPEG, PNG and WebP, you can also delete location tags individually and keep the rest. AVIF cleaning creates a PNG without copying original metadata. The position is shown in decimal degrees first, because "51 degrees, 30 minutes, 26 seconds" does not make it obvious that a photo names the building it was taken in.

### Can I change a tag instead of deleting it?

JPEG, PNG and WebP support tag editing and additions. A rewritten maker note may contain invalid manufacturer-specific offsets, so keep the original when that matters. AVIF's extracted EXIF is read-only; its cleaning action creates a PNG without original metadata rather than rewriting the AVIF container.

### Is it free, and do I need an account?

It is free, and there is no account, no sign-in and no trial. The site carries advertising, which is what pays for it; the ads are not given anything about your photos.

### Does it work offline?

Yes. Load the page once, then disconnect from the internet and it keeps working. That is also the simplest way to prove nothing is being uploaded: a tool that sent your photos away to be processed would stop the moment you unplugged.

## How the privacy claim is verifiable

- **Processing happens in this browser.** This tool processes input and results inside your browser. Its processing code does not upload them for processing. Content-Security-Policy restricts permitted resources and connection destinations, but allowed hosts can still receive requests: the policy does not inspect payloads and alone cannot prove that nothing is sent. Compare the source with the requests for the operation you use, or complete that local operation while disconnected.
- **Nothing here fetches anything.** Unlike the other tools in this box, this one has no "load from a web address" feature and no optional network step at all. There is no `fetch`, no `XMLHttpRequest` and no `sendBeacon` anywhere in `src/`.
- **The metadata we read is never read out.** Your GPS position is displayed on this page and goes nowhere else. There is no custom analytics event in this repository that carries a tag, a filename, a size or a count. Optional feedback reports only the tool slug, a fixed vote and a fixed reason, never the metadata read from your file.
- **What Google loads, and what it is not given.** The ad and measurement scripts come from Google. Neither is handed anything about your photos. Every line that reads, parses or rewrites a file is served from this origin and listed in the repository.
- **What the donate button loads, and what it is not given.** The "Buy me a coffee" button in the header is drawn by a script from cdnjs.buymeacoffee.com and letters itself from Google Fonts. It is a link and nothing more: it reports no visit, and it is handed nothing about you or your files. Nothing happens unless you click it, and what you would be clicking through to is somebody else's site.
- **It works offline.** Disconnect from the network and the tool is unchanged, because there was never a network step in it. That is the simplest proof of all.

**Check it yourself.** None of the above has to be taken on trust. This page is generated from the templates and config in the repository by a build script you can read and run yourself, and the result is committed to the `dist` branch — so you can diff what is served against what a build of the sources produces: https://github.com/A-Box-of-Tools/website

The files worth reading first are `config/site.toml` for the Content-Security-Policy, `src/tiff.js` for the EXIF parser, and `src/jpeg.js` for the proof that the picture itself is only ever copied.