Remove GPS Metadata

Delete the coordinates from a photo without throwing away everything else recorded in it.

Runs on your deviceImagesWorkingNo account needed

What this tool does

Remove GPS Metadata takes the location out of a picture rather than wiping the picture's metadata wholesale. On a JPEG set to remove only the location tags, the EXIF block is parsed and written out again entry by entry with the GPS pointer left out and fresh offsets calculated, so the make, model, lens, date and exposure settings survive the rewrite while the coordinates do not. The compressed image data is copied through byte for byte, so nothing is re-encoded and the picture is not degraded.

Coordinates are rarely only in the EXIF GPS section, so the other blocks are checked whichever option you choose. Each metadata segment the parser recognises outside the EXIF is searched for property names such as GPSLatitude, GPSPosition and geo:lat, and a segment carrying one — typically the XMP packet written by a phone or a photo editor — is dropped whole, because there is no safe way to edit half of it. The ICC colour profile is never removed, because it is not personal data and losing it shifts the colours on a wide-gamut screen.

PNG and WebP work differently, and the difference is worth knowing before you rely on it. Neither format lets you edit part of a metadata block, so in a PNG the eXIf chunk and any XMP or GPS-bearing text chunk are removed whole, and in a WebP the EXIF and XMP chunks both go regardless of what is inside them. The two options on the page therefore only change what happens to a JPEG; a PNG or a WebP gets the same treatment either way.

The rewrite happens in this browser tab and the file is not uploaded, which is the point when the thing you are removing is your home address. Four limits are worth stating plainly. Rebuilding the EXIF means the embedded thumbnail cannot come with it, because its offsets point at bytes that have moved, and the camera’s maker note is dropped by default since it commonly holds a serial number and uses absolute offsets that break in the same way. Choosing the whole EXIF block also takes the orientation tag with it, so a photo that relied on that flag can display rotated — Remove EXIF has a switch to keep it, this tool does not. Neither option is a full metadata wipe: an XMP packet, a Photoshop IPTC record or a JPEG comment that holds no coordinate property is left exactly where it was, captions and copyright lines included. And metadata is all this touches: a street sign, a house number or a recognisable view in the picture itself still says where it was taken.

How to use it

  1. Choose the photos. JPEG, PNG and WebP are accepted, and several at once are processed one after another. The format is read from the file's own bytes rather than its extension, so a HEIC renamed to .jpg is still identified as HEIC and refused with a pointer to the HEIC Converter.
  2. Pick how much to remove. Only the location tags rebuilds the EXIF around the missing GPS section and keeps the camera, date and exposure data. The whole EXIF block deletes it outright, which is simpler but takes the orientation and every other camera tag with it. Neither setting reaches a metadata block that carries no coordinates, so an IPTC record or a caption survives both — Remove EXIF is the one that clears the lot.
  3. Decide about the maker note. The checkbox appears under the first option and is off by default. Turn it on only if you need the manufacturer’s private block kept — it usually contains a camera serial number, and its bytes are copied across without their internal offsets being repointed, so some maker notes end up unreadable to the software that wrote them.
  4. Save the stripped copy. The output is saved with -nogps added to the name. The summary states what actually happened: whether GPS tags were found, which other blocks were removed, and whether the thumbnail or maker note went with them.

Processing & privacy

Runs on your device. Your file is processed directly in this browser.

Common use cases

Listing something for sale

A photo of a bike or a sofa was taken where the bike or sofa lives. Marketplace listings are public, and the coordinates in the file are a precise answer to where you keep it.

Publishing a portfolio

Photographers want the camera body, lens and exposure readable in the file and the shooting location not. Removing only the location tags leaves the technical data intact for anyone inspecting the image.

Sharing wildlife or heritage photographs

A nest site, a den or an unprotected archaeological find is exactly what a geotag gives away. Stripping the location before posting keeps the picture and loses the map reference.

Sending pictures from home

Photos of children, of a break-in, of a delivery gone wrong all get shared quickly and often onward. A file with no coordinates in it cannot answer where taken, however far it travels.

Questions

Does the photo leave my computer?
No. The file is read and rewritten by JavaScript in this browser tab, so it is never transmitted or stored. Once the page has loaded you can drop the network connection and every option still works, which is the simplest way to confirm it.
What survives if I remove only the location tags?
On a JPEG, the make, model, date, exposure and orientation are rebuilt and kept, along with the rest of the standard tags in IFD0 and the Exif sub-IFD. What does not survive is the embedded thumbnail, which cannot be carried through the rewrite, the maker note unless you tick the box to keep it, and any entry whose data type or offset the parser cannot make sense of.
Why did my photo come out rotated?
That is the whole EXIF block option removing the orientation tag along with everything else, which leaves a phone photo displaying the way the sensor recorded it. Use the location-only option, which keeps orientation, or Remove EXIF, which offers a switch for it.
Does it catch location stored outside EXIF?
It catches location written as a recognised property name. Each other metadata block the parser knows about is scanned for names like GPSLatitude and geo:lat and dropped when one appears, which covers the XMP that phones and editors write. What it cannot detect is a place named in prose — a caption reading taken at the beach house is text, not a coordinate, and stays.
My iPhone photos are HEIC. Can I use this?
Not directly. HEIC cannot be rewritten reliably in a browser, and the job is refused rather than returning a file that might still hold the tags. The HEIC Converter will do it with its keep-EXIF switch turned off, but that tool runs on the OmniKitly machine rather than in the tab, which is worth knowing when the coordinates are the reason you are here.
How do I check the coordinates are really gone?
Open the result in Image Metadata Viewer and look for the GPS section. Inspecting the output rather than trusting the summary is worth doing once, particularly for a format or a camera you have not put through the tool before.
Does removing the geotag reduce image quality?
No. The picture data is copied across untouched and nothing is decoded or re-compressed, so the pixels in the output are identical to the pixels in the input. Only metadata bytes change, which is why the output is a little smaller whenever something was actually removed — and byte-identical to the input when the file held no coordinates at all.

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