Remove Metadata from Photos Before You Share: A Practical Guide

Additional resource for the lesson “A Strategic Guide to Sharing Images Online” — Online Anonymity course

Before you share a picture, it helps to remove metadata from photos and to take a second look at what the image itself gives away. A photo can carry the place and time it was taken and the phone that took it, and its background can say even more. This resource shows you how to check and clean an image in a few minutes, so that it shows what you meant to show and links back to you no more than you chose.

A. Why this matters

In this course, privacy is deciding what others know about you; anonymity is being able to act without what you do being linked back to who you are. Photos sit right on that line. A picture posted under a nickname on a hobby forum, or in an advert for a second-hand sofa, can carry details that connect it to your home, your phone and the rest of your online life.

Most of the time, nothing comes of it. Sharing photos is one of the pleasures of being online; this is not a reason to stop. It is about the moment just before you press “post”: a minute to check what goes out with the image, and to decide whether you are happy with it.

It covers three things: the data inside the file, the clues in the frame, and the people in it with you.

What the sources say

The FBI’s Portland field office, in a public advice note on EXIF data, explains that the metadata attached to a digital photo can include “the camera model and settings you used, the date and time you took the picture”, as well as where it was taken. It suggests removing that data before sharing and then checking the cleaned image with an EXIF viewer.

The same note observes that “some social networks and photo-sharing sites have features that share EXIF data alongside images”, while others, including Facebook, “do not share EXIF data but may utilize the information internally.”

The Tails project, which makes a privacy-focused operating system, describes metadata as “data about data”. For images, its examples are where and when a photo was taken and the model and serial number of the camera. It is also candid about the limits: it warns that metadata cannot be reliably found and removed in every complex file format.

Cleaning the file does not change what the picture shows, and the picture often includes other people. Iceland’s Data Protection Authority reminds anyone posting images that data protection law applies when a person can be identified in a photo, and that consent is normally expected when someone is the main subject.

B. Key concepts

Six ideas: three about the file, three about the picture.

Two layers: the picture and the file

A photo is what you see, plus information stored inside the file. That stored part is called metadata, and on photos it is usually written in a standard format known as EXIF. The Cyber Welfare page on EXIF photo metadata explains how the format works; here the question is simpler: what to take out before you share.

Why it matters to you: You check the picture without thinking. The file layer stays out of sight unless you look for it, so a quick check is worth making a habit.

Location: the detail that ties a photo to a place

If your camera has access to your location, it can store the coordinates of where each photo was taken. Apple notes that on iPhone this can only happen while the Camera app has access to Location Services. A photo taken at home can therefore carry the position of your home.

Why it matters to you: For anonymity, location is the strongest link in the file. A photo of a sofa you are selling, or of your garden posted under a nickname, can point to your address even if nothing in the picture does.

How to remove metadata from photos with what you already have

Phones and computers already include some options. On iPhone, when you share from Photos, Apple explains that you can tap Options in the Share Sheet and turn off Location; “Location Not Included” then appears. You can also remove it from one photo under More › Adjust Info › Adjust Location › No Location. On a Mac, Photos offers Image › Location › Hide Location.

On Windows, a security awareness guide from the University of Valencia shows the route: right-click the image, choose Properties, open the Details tab, then use the option to remove properties and personal information, either all of them or the items you tick. On Android, Google is clear about one limit: “If a location was automatically added by your camera, you can’t update or remove the location in Google Photos.” There, the simplest step is to stop the camera saving location in the first place.

Why it matters to you: These options work differently: some leave location out of the copy you send, others change or hide it on your device. Whichever you use, check the copy that actually goes out.

What a platform receives is not what it shows

When you upload a photo, the version others see may have been stripped of its metadata, while the service itself may still hold or use it, as the FBI note points out. Google explains that links and albums shared from Google Photos do not include location details by default, and that estimated locations are not shared.

Why it matters to you: A clean public copy does not tell you what the service kept. Removing location before you upload means the service never receives it in the first place.

Clues in the frame

Cleaning the file changes nothing about what the picture shows. A view from a window, a reflection in glass, an open screen, a letter on the table, a ticket or badge with a code on it: any of these can tie an image to a place or to you. A distinctive photo used on two accounts can also link those accounts to each other. The Online Privacy resource in the box below audits these clues in past posts.

Why it matters to you: Cropping is the visible-layer equivalent of removing metadata. A ten-second look at the edges before you post catches much of what you did not mean to include.

Other people’s faces

Iceland’s Data Protection Authority distinguishes ordinary scenes of general interest from images where a person is the main subject, where consent is normally expected, and suggests that anyone unhappy with a photo first ask the person who posted it to remove it. Rules on publishing pictures of other people vary by country.

When asking is not possible, blurring helps. The messaging app Signal, for example, added a blur tool to its image editor that detects faces automatically and lets you blur more by hand, while noting that it does not detect every face.

Why it matters to you: Someone else’s face links them to a place and a moment. Asking first, or blurring, gives them the same choice you want for yourself.

C. A practical example: Lucia’s three photos

Lucia is 48, a parent who uses online services every day: shopping, messages from school, a second-hand marketplace and a gardening forum where she posts under a nickname. On Saturday morning she has three photos ready to go:

• a bookcase she wants to sell, photographed in her living room;
• her tomato plants on the balcony, for the forum;
• a group photo from her choir’s rehearsal, for the choir’s public page.

This time she checked them before posting. The bookcase photo carried the location of her flat, and the glass of the cabinet door reflected her window, with the sign of the café across the road. The tomato photo also carried her home location: on the forum, it would have linked her nickname to her address. The choir photo had been taken in the church hall, so location was not the issue, but two members at the edge of the picture had once said they prefer not to appear online.

What changed when Lucia checked them

• She cropped the cabinet door out of the bookcase photo, then shared it and the tomato photo with Location turned off in the Share Sheet options.
• She opened the copies she had sent on her laptop and checked that no location was left in the details.
• She asked the two choir members, who were happy with a blurred version, and blurred their faces before sending the photo to the person who runs the page.
• She turned off location in her camera settings for everyday photos, and now switches it on when she wants it, on holiday.

She still shared all three photos. The bookcase sold, the tomatoes got their compliments, and her forum nickname stayed separate from her address.

D. Try it yourself: check and clean three photos (20 minutes)

Four short steps, with three photos you plan to share, or three recent ones. You do not need to post anything.

Step 1 — Choose three photos and look at the file layer (5 minutes)

• Pick one taken at home, one taken outside, and one with other people in it.
• On iPhone, open each photo in Photos and swipe up or tap the Info button. On Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties and open the Details tab. On other devices, look for the photo’s details or information panel.
• For each photo, note three things: is there a location, a date and time, a device model?

Step 2 — Remove what you do not want to send (6 minutes)

• Use a built-in option from section B: share without location on iPhone, Hide Location in Photos on a Mac, or remove properties and personal information on Windows.
• If you prefer a separate tool, two examples are ExifTool, a command-line application for Windows, macOS and Unix systems, and Metadata Cleaner, a desktop app built on the open-source tool mat2 and included in Tails.
• ExifTool keeps a copy of the original file; Metadata Cleaner removes metadata “as much as possible”, in its own words. Treat any tool as a help, not a guarantee.

Step 3 — Read the frame and the faces (6 minutes)

• Look along the edges of each photo: windows, reflections, screens, papers, tickets or badges with codes, house numbers.
• Crop anything the photo does not need to tell its story.
• For the photo with other people, ask them before you share it, or blur the faces you cannot ask about.

Step 4 — Check the clean copy and decide (3 minutes)

• Open the cleaned copy, not the original, and look at its details again, as the FBI note suggests.
• If the location is still there, try another method, or do not share that copy.
• Then decide for each photo: share it as it is now, share it with a smaller audience, or keep it to yourself.

Three photos checked with care teach you more than a hundred posted out of habit.

Already covered in the Online Security course

Hide Photos on Your Phone: What the Built-In Options Do
It covers keeping photos out of sight on your own phone, with the Hidden album and Locked Folder; this resource looks at what a photo carries with it once it leaves the phone.

Already covered in the Online Privacy course

Oversharing Online: What Your Last Ten Posts Really Say
It audits what you have already posted for live location, routines, documents and background clues; this resource adds a check before you post: the data inside the file, and the faces of other people.

E. Videos, articles and further resources

Institutional guidance first, then platform documentation and two neutral tools. All in English.

Institutional guidance

FBI Portland — Oregon FBI Tech Tuesday: Building a Digital Defense Against Dangers of EXIF Data
What EXIF data contains, how sites handle it, and the advice to remove it and check the result.
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/portland/news/press-releases/oregon-fbi-tech-tuesday-building-a-digital-defense-against-dangers-of-exif-data

Data Protection Authority (Iceland) — Data protection and online publication of pictures and videos
When publishing photos of other people involves data protection law, consent, and asking for removal.
https://island.is/en/data-protection-and-online-publication-of-pictures-and-videos

University of Valencia — Removing metadata from a digital image with Microsoft Windows
A security awareness guide showing where Windows keeps photo metadata and how to remove it.
https://www.uv.es/ensuv/en/guides/uv-safety/document-cleaning-/eliminar-metadades-associades-a-una-imatge-digital-amb-microsoft.html

Platform documentation

Apple Support — Manage location metadata in Photos
How to see, remove and stop saving location in photos on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and how to share without it.
https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/personal-safety/ips0d7a5df82/web

Google Photos Help — Change your camera location settings
The camera option that saves location on Android phones, with its name on different brands.
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/9921876?hl=en-GB

Google Photos Help — How Google Photos protects your location data
What location is, and is not, included when you share from Google Photos, and why landmarks still matter.
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/11190100

Tools

Tails — Removing metadata from files
What metadata is, how Metadata Cleaner and mat2 remove it, and the limits of any cleaning.
https://tails.net/doc/sensitive_documents/metadata

ExifTool by Phil Harvey
Documentation for the command-line application that reads, writes and removes metadata in many file types.
https://exiftool.org/

Links checked in November 2026. If an address changes, searching for the title on the organisation’s site usually finds it.

F. The Cyber Welfare Framework: Skills, Awareness, Secure Behaviour

This resource sits on the Secure Behaviour pillar at level FL2 – Beginner: a short check, repeated before you share, that turns a good intention into a habit.

Skills

• Finding the location and other metadata of a photo on your own phone or computer.
• Removing location before sharing, with a built-in option or a separate tool.
• Cropping and blurring an image before it goes out.

Awareness

• Understanding that a photo carries a file layer as well as a picture.
• Knowing that a platform’s public copy may be cleaner than what the platform itself holds.
• Recognising that other people in your photos have their own choices to make.

Secure Behaviour

• Checking the file and the frame before posting, not afterwards.
• Keeping camera location off for everyday photos, and switching it on when you want it.
• Asking before sharing a photo where someone else is the main subject.

G. Questions to sit with

• Which of your recent photos, posted where you use a nickname, could have linked that nickname to a place?
• When a friend posts a photo of you, what would you like them to ask you first?
• Which detail in a photo would you be most surprised to find a stranger had noticed?

H. What to do now

The recommendations (R) and security measures (MS) from the Cyber Welfare database that apply most directly here.

1. What goes out with the file

• R32 — Turn off photo geotagging, so that new photos do not carry the place they were taken unless you decide they should. On Android the option has different names depending on the brand, such as “Save location” or “Location tags”.
• Remove location, or all metadata, from any photo taken at home before you share it, and check the copy that actually goes out.

Minimum commitment: today, open your camera settings and either turn location off or decide, knowingly, to keep it on.

2. What the picture shows, and who sees it

• R24 — Think twice before posting photos with QR codes, such as tickets and badges: a code can hold more than it shows.
• MS7 — Limit access to your account, photos and posts by changing privacy settings, so that a photo you do share reaches the audience you chose.
• Ask before posting a photo where someone else is the main subject, and blur faces when you cannot ask.

Minimum commitment: before your next post with other people in it, ask them once.

In short

• To remove metadata from photos is to clean the file layer: location first, then date and device details.
• Built-in options on iPhone, Mac and Windows are the easiest place to start; check the cleaned copy, because no method is guaranteed.
• What a platform shows publicly is not necessarily what it received.
• Cleaning the file does not clean the picture: check the edges, and ask the people in it.

Related resources in this course

• Share Sensitive Documents Online: Send Only What Is Needed
• Identifying Information Online: Decide What You Share, With Whom
• How to Prevent Doxxing: Spot the Signs, Reduce Your Exposure

Discover more companion resources from the online courses of the Protect Your Digital Privacy programme.