For a JPEG you plan to share, open Image Metadata Manager, choose Inspect fields and review the recognized camera, date and GPS information. Then choose the removal action that fits your purpose and inspect the exported copy again.
Location information can appear in more than one metadata container. Removing the EXIF GPS directory does not remove coordinates or place names stored elsewhere, and neither action changes the scene visible in the photograph.
Choose between broad removal and GPS-only removal
| Action | What it changes | What remains relevant |
|---|---|---|
| Remove listed metadata | Drops EXIF, XMP, Photoshop/IPTC containers and JPEG comments, including unrecognized APP1/APP13 blocks | Keeps orientation and ICC color data; other retained segments are reported |
| Remove GPS location only | Rebuilds supported EXIF data without its GPS directory | Other EXIF fields, XMP and Photoshop/IPTC can remain |
Use broad removal when you want to remove the listed camera, date and location containers together. Remove EXIF Metadata opens on that action. Its name does not mean every possible application segment or identifying detail is removed.
Use GPS-only removal when retaining other supported metadata is intentional. CIPA publishes separate standards for Exif and Exif metadata for XMP, which helps explain why a location check should consider more than one container. This tool reports the supported fields and retained segments it recognizes; it is not an exhaustive forensic inspection.
Check supported files and refusal messages
The manager accepts up to 50 JPEGs, 64 MiB and 40 megapixels each, within 128 MiB for the batch. PNG, WebP, RAW, HEIC and TIFF are not supported. Use an editor that supports those formats instead of converting to JPEG solely for metadata removal, which can change image quality or transparency.
Picture data is copied without re-encoding. Keeping the orientation tag helps a portrait photo display upright, and retaining ICC data preserves its existing color profile.
GPS-only removal and Change mode refuse MakerNote blocks and unsupported image-data offsets because those fields may depend on the original layout. Read the refusal rather than assuming a cleaned copy was created. Broad container removal is a different operation; choose it only if discarding those containers meets your needs.
Inspect, remove and inspect again
- Inspect one JPEG to see the recognized fields and container counts.
- Choose Remove listed metadata or Remove GPS location only.
- Run the action and read each file's result, including retained and uninspected segments.
- Download the JPEG, or the ZIP for several outputs.
- Open the exported file and run Inspect fields on it again.
Inspect files individually when you need their complete field tables. A successful result for one photo does not establish that every file in the batch carried the same metadata.
The other modes have different purposes. Replace and Change write supported values; a fixed date offset corrects stored camera-clock strings. Those actions do not perform the same removal as the two choices above.
Review what the photograph still reveals
Look for street signs, house numbers, reflections, documents and other visible location clues. Check the output filename too. If unwanted information is at the edge of the picture, Image Cropper can remove that area, but cropping is a pixel edit and can re-encode the image.
For example, three phone photos might contain GPS coordinates while one also shows a readable house number. Broad metadata removal can remove the listed containers from all three; the house number remains visible in the third image. Crop or replace that picture, then inspect the final file you actually intend to send.
Keep original and cleaned files in separate locations so you do not accidentally attach the original. Cleaning a new copy does not recall files already shared, change a service's earlier copies or remove identifying information from the scene. Review both the metadata result and the photograph before sharing.