See and remove the hidden location in your photos
Runs in your browser and works with Wi-Fi off.
Photos can hold hidden notes: the exact place they were taken, the date, and the phone or camera that took them. Check before you post, sell or send a photo. Drop a photo below to see what yours says. Then press “Clean my photo” to save a copy without those notes. The picture stays exactly the same.
Drop a photo here
JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC (iPhone). Nothing is uploaded.
What's the catch? It's free, with no signup, and your photos never leave this device. Later we plan to offer a $4.99 one-time upgrade that cleans many photos at once.
Try it with Wi-Fi off. Once this page has loaded, turn off Wi-Fi and drop a photo. It still works, because nothing is sent anywhere.
Your photo
What a photo can say about you
Most phones and cameras write notes into every photo file. The notes are called metadata. The most common kind is called EXIF. You don't see these notes when you look at the picture, but anyone who has the file can read them. They can include:
- Where you were. GPS coordinates. Phones with GPS are “typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky,” says the U.S. government's GPS site. (GPS.gov, checked Nov 10, 2026.) Some files also record the height and which way the camera faced.
- When. The date and time the photo was taken, and when it was last edited.
- What took it. The phone or camera model, the lens, and sometimes a serial number.
- Who. An owner name, a copyright line, or the name of the computer that edited the photo.
- A second, smaller copy of the picture. Some files carry a small preview image inside them.
Not every photo has all of these. The checker above shows you exactly what is in yours. To check photos on your phone or computer without this tool, see how to check if a photo shows your location.
How the cleaning works
A photo file is made of parts, a bit like a letter in an envelope. One part is the picture. Other parts are the notes written about it. “Clean my photo” makes a new file that has the picture part and leaves the notes out.
We never redraw or re-save the picture. Many quick fixes, like taking a screenshot, create a new picture and can lower its quality. Here, the picture part is copied byte for byte. After each clean, the tool compares the old and new picture data and shows you the result.
Then it opens the new file again from scratch, reads it, and lists what's left. That's the “Checked” box you see after cleaning. It's based on the file you got, not on what we expect.
The details, by file type
- JPEG: we drop the EXIF and XMP sections (APP1), IPTC and Photoshop data (APP13), comments (COM), other application sections, and any extra data after the end of the picture. Everything else is copied unchanged.
- PNG: we drop the
eXIf,tEXt,zTXt,iTXtandtIMEchunks and any private chunks. The picture chunks are copied unchanged. - WebP: we drop the
EXIFandXMPchunks, then fix the file's header so it still adds up. - HEIC: the notes sit in fixed spots inside the file. We blank them out (overwrite them with zeros) rather than cut them out, so nothing else in the file moves. The clean HEIC is the same size as the original, and only the blanked bytes differ.
What it removes and what it keeps
| Data | “Clean my photo” |
|---|---|
| Location (GPS coordinates, height, direction) | Removed |
| Phone or camera make and model, lens | Removed |
| Dates and times | Removed |
| Serial numbers, owner name, copyright, computer name | Removed |
| Captions, keywords, comments, text notes | Removed |
| The small preview image stored inside the file | Removed |
| Private camera-maker notes and editing history | Removed |
| Extra data after the end of the picture | Removed |
| The picture itself | Kept, byte for byte |
| Color profile (tells apps how to show the colors) | Kept. The checker shows its name, which is usually a standard one like “sRGB”. |
| Which way is up (orientation) | Kept, only when the photo needs turning. See below. |
| Pixel density (DPI) and transparency | Kept |
Why we keep “which way is up”
Phones and cameras often save a photo sideways and add a note that says “turn this 90° to view.” If we removed that note, your clean copy would show up sideways. So when a photo needs it, we keep a tiny note with that one setting and nothing else. It says nothing about you. The checker tells you when this happens.
Limits
- File types: JPEG, PNG, WebP and HEIC only. Camera RAW files, TIFF, GIF, AVIF and videos aren't supported. That includes the video part of an iPhone Live Photo.
- One photo at a time in the free tool. You can add several and step through them.
- The picture itself can give you away. Street signs, house numbers, car plates, landmarks and reflections stay in the picture. Cleaning only removes the hidden notes.
- Your original doesn't change. We save a new copy. The photo on your phone keeps its data, and so do copies you've already sent.
- File names stay. The copy keeps your file name with “-clean” added. Some file names include the date, like
20250614_174503.jpg. Rename the copy if that matters to you. - Upload sites differ. Some apps and websites remove this data when you upload, and some don't. Cleaning the file yourself means you don't have to know which is which.
Your privacy
Your photo is read by code running in this browser tab. It is never uploaded, not even to us. This site has no analytics, no ads, no cookies and no code from other companies. Every file it loads comes from this site.
You don't have to take our word for it. The page's security rules (its Content Security Policy) include connect-src 'none', which tells your browser to block the page's code from connecting to any server. Source: MDN, “CSP: connect-src”. Checked Nov 10, 2026.
Check it yourself on a computer: open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd+Option+I on a Mac), choose the Network tab, then drop a photo. No new requests appear. Or just turn off Wi-Fi and try it.
More detail is in our privacy notice.
Questions
Does cleaning lower the photo's quality?
No. The picture data is copied byte for byte, never re-saved. After each clean, the checker compares the picture data in both files and shows how many bytes matched.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything happens in your browser on this device. The page works the same with Wi-Fi off, and its security rules block it from connecting to any server.
How do I stop my phone adding the location?
On an iPhone, Apple says to go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera, then choose Never. (Apple Support, checked Nov 10, 2026.) On Android, Google says to turn off the location setting in your camera app's settings. Its name varies: “Save location” on Google Pixel, “Location tags” on Samsung. (Google Photos Help, checked Nov 10, 2026.) Photos you already took keep their location.
Can I share from my iPhone without the location?
Yes, one share at a time. Apple says: in Photos, select the photos, tap Share, tap Options, then turn off Location. “Location Not Included” then shows above the Options button. (Apple Support, checked Nov 10, 2026.) That setting covers location only. Use this checker to see what else the file holds.
Does it work with iPhone HEIC photos?
Yes. It reads and cleans HEIC files. We've tested it on a HEIC file with location data that we made on a Mac from a camera photo (see our test results). We haven't yet tested one straight from an iPhone. Some browsers can't show a preview of a HEIC image, but the check and the clean still work. If you'd rather your iPhone took JPEG photos, Apple says to go to Settings > Camera > Formats and choose Most Compatible. (Apple Support, checked Nov 10, 2026.)
What will the $4.99 upgrade do?
It's planned, not built. The idea is a one-time $4.99 purchase that cleans many photos at once. Nothing is for sale today.