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Free tool

Metadata viewer & remover

Photos and documents carry hidden data: where a photo was taken, the phone that took it, the name of whoever wrote a document. See all of it, then download a clean copy without it.

Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Drop photos, documents or videos or click to choose · JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, TIFF, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, MP4, MOV

Cleaning copies the picture data byte for byte, so quality stays the same. Clean copies are saved as name-clean.jpg.

Your files are read on this device and never uploaded.

What metadata gives away

Phones and cameras write EXIF data into every photo: the exact GPS position, the date and time to the second, the make and model, lens details and often a serial number. Editing apps add XMP with their name and edit history, and news and stock photos carry IPTC captions, names and places. Many photos also hide a small preview image that can still show what was cropped out.

Documents do the same. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files store the author, the last person to edit, the company name, the template and the total editing time. PDFs keep the author, the program that made them and, after edits, sometimes earlier versions of the text.

Which files can be cleaned

  • JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF: EXIF, XMP, IPTC, comments, hidden previews and data appended after the image are removed. Colour profiles stay so colours look the same.
  • Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx): author, last editor, company, manager, template and custom properties are cleared.
  • HEIC, TIFF, PDF and video: shown in full, with a tip on how to clean them in the app that made them.

Social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and X strip most metadata from photos when you post them. Email attachments, cloud links, messengers sending “as file”, and forum uploads usually do not.

Frequently asked questions

Are my files uploaded?

No. Files are read by JavaScript in your browser and the clean copy is created there too. Nothing is sent to TraceFind or anyone else.

Does removing metadata reduce image quality?

No. The compressed picture data is copied unchanged and only the metadata blocks are left out, so the clean file looks exactly the same and is usually a little smaller.

Why is my cleaned photo sideways?

Phones often save photos sideways and add an orientation tag that tells viewers to rotate them. Removing all metadata removes that tag too. Rotate the photo in an editor and save it, then clean it again.

Can a location be found without GPS data?

Yes. The content of a photo (signs, landmarks, the view from a window) often reveals where it was taken even with no metadata at all. Removing metadata is one step, not a guarantee.

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