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Remove metadata from a file
Drop anything — a photo, a PDF, a Word document, a video, a song. The format is worked out from the bytes, you are shown what it is carrying, and you decide whether to remove it. Nothing is uploaded, which on this page is not a convenience but the entire point.
Up to 100 files at once. Mixed formats are fine.
They convert one after another and download together as a ZIP.
Remove metadata by file type
- JPGRemove EXIF dataSomeone about to publish or send a photograph who has realised it carries more than the picture — and who does not want to upload it somewhere to find out how much.
- JPGRemove GPS location from a photoSomeone who has just realised their photographs record where they were taken, usually before selling something online or posting a picture of their home.
- PDFRemove PDF metadataSomeone sending a PDF outside their organisation who does not want it to name the person, the software or the template it came from.
- DOCXRemove Word document metadataSomebody sending a document to a client, a court or a counterparty who does not want it to name the colleague who last saved it or the template it was built from.
- XLSXRemove Excel metadataSomebody circulating a spreadsheet — a budget, a model, a price list — who does not want it to name the author or the organisation it was built in.
- PPTXRemove PowerPoint metadataSomebody sending a deck outside their company — to a client, an investor or a conference — who does not want it to name the author, the template or the hours spent on it.
- MP4Remove video metadataSomebody publishing or sending a video who does not want it to carry the device, the date or the location it was recorded at.
- MP3Remove audio metadataSomebody sharing a recording — a demo, an interview, a voice memo — who does not want it to carry tags, cover art or the name of whoever recorded it.
Why this one has to run on your own machine
Every other tool on this site is faster in your browser. This one is only coherent there. Uploading a photograph to a server so that it can remove the record of where you took it means the server now has the photograph and the location — the disclosure you were trying to prevent has already happened, and you are trusting a promise about what happens next.
Nothing here is sent anywhere. You can confirm it the way you would confirm anything else: open the network tab of your browser's developer tools and watch, or disconnect from the network entirely and use the page anyway. It works.
About “file properties”
If you arrived looking for a way to remove Windows file properties, this page is the closest honest answer. The properties Explorer shows come from two different places: some are read out of the file itself — the author of a document, the camera that took a photo — and those are exactly what this removes.
The rest are not in the file at all. Created and modified timestamps belong to the file system, and the “this file came from another computer” marker is an alternate data stream attached alongside it. A web page cannot touch either, and any tool claiming otherwise in a browser is describing something it did not do. Both are reset anyway when a file is downloaded, emailed or copied to a different disk.
What removing metadata is not
It is not redaction. Text hidden under a black rectangle in a PDF is still text. Tracked changes and comments in a Word document are content rather than properties and survive, with their authors' names attached. An image cropped inside PowerPoint keeps the whole original picture and merely displays part of it. Hidden sheets in a spreadsheet stay hidden and stay readable.
None of those are metadata, none of them are removed here, and a tool that let you believe otherwise would be worse than no tool at all. Each page says which of these apply to its own format.
Nor does it make a file anonymous. Removing metadata removes what a file records about itself; it cannot remove what the file shows. A photograph of your street is still a photograph of your street, a screenshot with a name in it still has the name, and a document still reads the way its author writes. If the worry is being identified rather than being geolocated, this is one useful step and not the whole job.
Nothing is re-encoded
A cleaned photograph is pixel-identical to the original. The metadata blocks are cut out of the file and the compressed image data is copied across byte for byte — there is no decode and no re-encode, so there is no generation loss to accumulate. The file comes back slightly smaller and otherwise the same. The same holds for audio and video: the tags are rewritten and the streams are remuxed rather than transcoded, so a song is not quietly downgraded on its way through.
That is the reason this is a separate tool rather than a checkbox on the compressor. The two jobs pull in opposite directions — compressing deliberately changes the image to make it smaller, and this deliberately changes nothing except what the file says about you. Bundling them would mean one of the two had to compromise.
What is actually in there
A photograph from a phone usually carries the coordinates it was taken at, accurate enough to identify a building; the date and time to the second; the make, model and often the serial number of the device; and the exposure settings. Some also carry a thumbnail that was generated before you cropped or edited the picture, which is how an apparently innocuous image can still contain what you removed from it.
Documents carry a different set. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files record the author, the person who last saved it, the organisation named in the software licence, the total editing time and the template it came from. PDFs additionally record the program that produced them, which is often enough to identify an employer. Audio files carry tagging software and sometimes purchase identifiers; video carries the encoder, the recording device and occasionally a location.
You are shown the actual contents of your own file before anything is removed, which is more useful than any list on a page like this. Entries that identify you are marked, so the decision is an informed one rather than a leap.
Questions about removing metadata
What is file metadata, and why would I remove it?
It is everything a file records about itself besides its contents. A photograph from a phone typically stores the exact coordinates where it was taken, the date and time to the second, the camera or phone model and often its serial number, and the settings used. A document stores its author's name, the organisation, how long it was edited for and sometimes earlier revisions. None of that is visible when you look at the file, and all of it travels with it when you post it, email it or sell something with it.
Is anything uploaded?
No, and on this page that is not a convenience but the whole design. Uploading a photograph so that a server can remove the record of where you took it means the server now has both the photograph and the location — the disclosure you were trying to prevent has already happened. Everything here runs in your browser. Disconnect from the network and it still works, which is the demonstration rather than the promise.
Which files can I clean?
JPEG, PNG and WebP images; PDF; Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents; MP4, WebM and MOV video; and MP3, FLAC, WAV and M4A audio. Drop the file and the format is identified from its bytes, so you do not need to know whether what you are removing is called EXIF, XMP, ID3 or document properties.
Does removing metadata reduce the quality of my photo?
Not at all. The image data is not touched — the metadata blocks are cut out of the file and the compressed picture is copied across byte for byte, so what comes back is pixel-identical to what went in. The file is slightly smaller, and that is the only difference. This is why it is a separate tool from compression rather than a checkbox on it.
Can I remove just the GPS location and keep the rest?
Yes, for photographs. The camera settings, the timestamp and the colour profile are often worth keeping — a photographer may want the exposure data — while the coordinates are the part that identifies where you live. Both options are offered, and you are shown which entries fall into which group before you choose.
How do I know it actually worked?
The page reads the file back after cleaning it and lists what remains. If something survived, it says so and names it, rather than reporting success and letting you find out later. A few entries are deliberately kept — a colour profile is what stops the picture shifting hue in other software — and those are marked as kept rather than counted as failures.
Does this make my file anonymous?
No, and this is the most important limit on the page. Removing metadata removes what the file records about itself; it cannot remove what the file shows. A photograph of your street is still a photograph of your street. A screenshot with a name in it still has the name. A document still reads the way its author writes. If your concern is being identified rather than being geolocated, this is one step and not the whole job.
Is it the same as redacting a document?
It is not, and confusing the two is how people get caught out. Text hidden under a black rectangle in a PDF is still text and can still be selected. Tracked changes and comments in a Word document are content rather than properties, and survive with their authors attached. An image cropped inside PowerPoint keeps the whole original picture and merely displays part of it. Hidden spreadsheet sheets stay hidden and stay readable. None of those are metadata and none of them are removed here — each format page says which apply to it.
Can I remove Windows file properties this way?
Partly, and the split is worth understanding. Some of what Explorer shows in the Properties dialog is read out of the file itself — a document's author, a photo's camera — and that is exactly what this removes. The rest is not in the file at all: created and modified timestamps belong to the file system, and the "came from another computer" marker is a separate stream attached alongside. No web page can touch either, and anything in a browser claiming to is describing something it did not do. Both are reset anyway when a file is downloaded, emailed or copied to another disk.
Can the metadata be recovered afterwards?
Not from the cleaned file — the bytes are gone rather than hidden, so there is nothing to undo. Which also means there is no undo for you: keep your original if you might want the camera settings or the revision history back, because the cleaned copy cannot give them to you.
Do social networks not strip this already?
Most large platforms do strip EXIF when they re-encode an upload, and that is worth knowing rather than dismissing. It does not cover the cases that matter most: a file sent by email or messenger, attached to a marketplace listing, uploaded to a forum or a small site, or handed over as a document usually arrives intact. And "the recipient will probably remove it" is a guess about somebody else's software, not a property of your file.
Is it free, and is there a limit?
Free, with no account and no cap. Because nothing is uploaded there is no server capacity to ration, so there is nothing to meter and no upgrade to sell you.