I strip location data from photos before sharing anything from my home, and I've corrected the date-taken field on enough scanned family photos to appreciate how much truth lives in EXIF metadata — and how much privacy leaks through it. This guide shows you how to view, edit and remove EXIF data on every platform in 2026, using tools you mostly already have. A note if you're coming from the 2019 version of this article: the third-party tools it recommended (Photos Exif Editor and EXIFPurge) have both gone off the market — their domains are dead — so this update leans on built-in OS features and the one power tool that's still the standard.
Quick answer: On Windows, right-click a photo → Properties → Details → "Remove Properties and Personal Information". On Mac, Preview and the Photos app handle date and location edits. On iPhone and Android, the Photos apps can remove location per photo, and sharing sheets strip metadata by default. For full control of every field, ExifTool (free, cross-platform) edits anything. Whole-photo metadata removal before posting remains a two-second habit worth building.
What EXIF data actually is
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data is the metadata your camera or phone writes into every photo: date and time, camera model and lens, exposure settings (shutter, aperture, ISO), and — on phones — GPS coordinates accurate to a few metres. Screenshots usually carry none; camera photos carry a lot. (If you want the full technical taxonomy, this photo metadata explainer is a solid deep dive.) Social platforms mostly strip EXIF on upload, but email, cloud links, AirDrop-style transfers and messaging apps that send the original file pass it through untouched.
There's also the editing side: the date-taken field is what your photo library sorts by. When a scanner or a backup tool gets that date wrong, your whole library chronology breaks — which is the second-biggest reason people edit EXIF (the first is privacy).
Windows: remove metadata with File Explorer
1. Right-click the photo → Properties → Details tab. Every EXIF field shows here.
2. Click "Remove Properties and Personal Information" at the bottom.
3. Choose either "Create a copy with all possible properties removed" (safe — keeps your original) or remove selected properties from the file in place.
4. GPS coordinates, camera serial numbers, author names and the computer name go with the rest.
To edit rather than remove (say, fixing the date taken), the Details tab lets you click and correct most fields directly — handy for scanned photos with yesterday's date.
Mac: Preview and Photos cover the basics
- View everything: open the photo in Preview → Tools → Show Inspector → EXIF (and GPS) tabs.
- Remove or change location: open the photo in the Photos app → press ⌘I (Get Info) → Image tab → Location field → click Remove Location (or assign a different one). Photos with wrong dates: Image → Adjust Date and Time.
- Copy without metadata: exporting via File → Export with "Export As" a new file carries the image forward; for a guaranteed-clean copy, drag the photo out of Preview into a new document and save, or use the Terminal route below.
Apple documents the location-privacy behaviour for iPhone and Mac sharing in its support note on location data in photos — worth a skim, because it explains which share paths strip data automatically.
iPhone: strip location before you share
1. Open the photo in Photos, swipe up (or tap the ⓘ) to see the map and metadata.
2. Tap Adjust next to the date, or No Location / Remove to strip GPS from that photo.
3. When sharing, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and untick Location (or choose "None") — the photo goes out without coordinates while your master copy keeps them.
4. Bulk scrubbing: select multiple photos → share → Options → deselect Location; iOS removes it from every copy in that batch.
Android: Google Photos and third-party editors
In Google Photos, open a photo → swipe up to see metadata (tap the ⋮ → Details on some versions). To remove location, tap the ⋮ → Remove location. Editing arbitrary EXIF fields needs an app: Photo Exif Editor (free on Play Store) edits or wipes all fields, including camera model and serial numbers, in bulk. Huawei, Samsung and Xiaomi gallery apps increasingly include their own "details → edit" screens; check yours before installing anything.
The power tool: ExifTool (Windows, Mac, Linux)
ExifTool is the free, scriptable standard the pros use, and in 2026 it remains the only tool that touches every field every other tool ignores:
- View everything: `exiftool photo.jpg`
- Remove all metadata: `exiftool -all= photo.jpg` (writes a `photo.jpg_original` backup — delete it once happy)
- Remove GPS only: `exiftool -gps:all= photo.jpg`
- Fix dates in bulk: `exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal=2019:04:11 14:30:00" folder/` (applies to every photo in the folder — this is how I repaired a scanned-album chronology in one command)
There's a learning curve measured in minutes, not hours, and it's the only tool on this list that works identically everywhere.
Online EXIF editors: convenient, with one caveat
Web-based viewers and editors (VerExif, Thexifer and similar) let you drop a photo in a browser tab and edit or wipe metadata without installing anything. Fine for non-sensitive images — but uploading a photo to a random web service to protect your privacy is a little ironic. For anything personal, keep it local with the tools above.
What happened to the tools in our 2019 guide
For the record, since readers search for them: Photos Exif Editor (Systweak) and EXIFPurge — both recommended in the previous version of this article — are no longer available; their websites no longer resolve as of 2026. Neither tool's absence breaks anything: Explorer, Finder, Photos apps and ExifTool cover everything they did, for free.
Quick comparison
| Platform | View metadata | Edit date | Remove location | Bulk removal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Explorer | Yes (Details tab) | Yes | Yes | Copy-without-properties per file |
| Mac Photos/Preview | Yes | Yes | Yes | Via ExifTool |
| iPhone Photos | Yes | Adjust date | Yes (per photo/batch) | Via share-sheet batch |
| Android Google Photos | Yes | Limited | Yes | Via third-party app |
| ExifTool | Everything | Everything | Everything | Yes (folder-wide) |
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to remove EXIF data from photos?
Yes — EXIF removal only touches metadata, never the image pixels. The photo looks identical afterwards. The only practical downsides: your photo library loses sorting accuracy if you strip dates from your masters (so scrub copies you share, keep originals), and some professional workflows want camera/lens EXIF intact for provenance.
Do Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook strip EXIF data?
The big social platforms and WhatsApp process and re-encode images, which strips most EXIF including GPS. But messaging apps with "send as file/document" options, email attachments, and direct cloud-drive links pass the original file through with metadata intact. The safe habit: assume metadata survives unless you checked the specific app's behaviour.
How do I remove GPS location from a photo on iPhone?
Open the photo, swipe up, tap the location preview, and choose "No Location" — or when sharing, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and switch Location off. Both methods leave your original's master data untouched in the first case or strip it from the shared copy in the second. Batch-select photos to remove location from many at once via the share sheet.
What EXIF data should I remove before posting photos?
At minimum: GPS coordinates (they reveal your home, workplace, kids' school and travel patterns), plus camera serial numbers and your name if the camera embeds them (many DSLRs let you set an author/copyright field). Date and exposure data are harmless for most people. The Windows "remove properties" dialog and ExifTool's `-gps:all=` flag handle the sensitive fields in seconds.
Can I recover EXIF data after it's been removed?
No — once metadata is stripped and the file saved, the data is gone; there's nothing forensic tools can resurrect it from. That's why the Windows "create a copy with properties removed" option is the right default: your original keeps its metadata while the shared copy is clean. Backups made before scrubbing also preserve the data if you ever need it back.
Related reading
- Best duplicate photo finder software for Windows
- Top ways to eliminate duplicate photos
- iPhone storage full? Free space without losing photos
- How to remove duplicate files in Windows
I bulk-scrub every photo folder before it leaves my machines — if you've got an EXIF question this guide didn't answer, ask in the comments and I'll dig out the command.
