You’ve probably heard the warning a hundred times: strip the metadata before you post that photo. Yet every week someone still accidentally publishes their home address because they only cropped the picture and called it safe. Removing EXIF properly takes literally three seconds once you know the tricks that actually work in 2025. Here they are, from dead-simple to bulletproof.
The Nuclear Options (one click, everything gone)
Windows 11
Right-click one or a hundred images → Properties → Details tab → “Remove Properties and Personal Information” at the bottom → Create a copy with all possible properties removed. Done. Microsoft finally made this create a new file instead of destroying the original (thank you 2023 update).
macOS
Select photos in Finder → right-click → Quick Actions → Remove Location Information only does GPS.
For total annihilation, open Terminal and type:sips -x image.jpg
or drag files onto the free app ImageOptim and tick “Remove EXIF/IPTC/XMP”.
iPhone & iPad
Photos app → select image → Share → Save to Files → choose “Remove Location” if you only care about GPS. For full strip, use the Shortcuts action “Remove EXIF from Photos” (takes two taps and works on entire albums).
Android
Google Photos → select → three-dot menu → Export → “Remove photo location” is the only built-in option. For everything else, open the free app Scrambled Exif or Metapho, tap once, and watch the file shrink by 30–80 KB as the metadata vanishes.
The 2025 “I’m lazy” champion: browser drag-and-drop
Drop any number of images onto ExifView.net → click “Download Clean Copies” at the top. We strip every tag except a single minimal JPEG marker, keep the exact same visual quality, and never touch your originals. Works on phones, tablets, Chromebooks, even Linux boxes with no install. Most people now use this before uploading to dating apps or real-estate listings.
Social platforms that do it for you (and the ones that lie)
Good citizens (2025 reality):
- Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat: remove GPS and most identifying tags automatically.
- WhatsApp: strips almost everything when you use the normal send button.
- Telegram, Signal, iMessage (uncompressed): keep everything unless you manually strip first.
The grey zone: Discord keeps camera model and date, Reddit preserves full EXIF unless you go through old.reddit upload.
Batch processing thousands of photos without breaking a sweat
- Windows: ImageMagick (free) →
magick mogrify -strip *.jpg - Mac/Linux: same command, or use the GUI app ExifCleaner (drag a folder, click Start, walk away).
- Cross-platform: XnConvert (free) can strip metadata from 10 000 files in under a minute and even preserve folder structure.
When you need surgical precision (keep some tags, kill others)
Open ExifTool (still the king in 2025):
- Remove only GPS:
exiftool -gps:all= image.jpg - Keep copyright but delete everything else:
exiftool -all= --exif:artist="Your Name" image.jpg - Nuke MakerNotes but leave basic exposure data:
-makernotes= -xmp:all=
The myth that still won’t die
Cropping, screenshotting, or converting to PNG does NOT reliably remove EXIF. Plenty of apps re-inject the data on save. The only thing that truly works is telling the system “strip metadata” explicitly.
Do it once and it becomes muscle memory. Three seconds of precaution beats years of explaining to strangers why they can see your bedroom curtains on Google Street View.