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Remove HEIC Metadata
Edit the metadata out of the HEIC itself, with no re-encode. Pick a privacy-safe preset, remove everything, or choose exactly what goes, then read the verified report.
Input
Drop HEIC or HEIF files here
or choose them from your device
HEIC or HEIF · up to 100 MB per file · processed on your device
At a glance
- Input
- HEIC/HEIF, up to 50 files
- Output
- The same HEIC, edited in place
- You choose
- Privacy-safe, everything, or 7 kinds
- Checked
- Re-read and decoded after cleaning
What this tool does
This tool removes exactly the metadata you choose from a HEIC and hands back a HEIC. It does not decode and re-encode: it edits the Exif and XMP blocks inside the original file, so the file keeps its length, every byte outside those blocks is unchanged, and the pixels are identical. There are three modes. Privacy-safe (the default) is an allow-list that keeps camera make and model, lens, exposure settings, capture date and time and orientation, and drops everything else. Remove everything replaces Exif and XMP with empty ones. Choose what to remove gives a checklist of seven kinds.
The checklist is location (GPS), serial numbers and owner and IDs (body and lens serials, owner, author, copyright, unique image ID, comments, software), camera, lens and exposure, date and time, XMP, MakerNote, and the thumbnail inside the Exif. Whatever you leave unticked stays exactly as it is, which makes it possible to do things the other options cannot, such as stripping serials and owner names while keeping the location, or removing dates while keeping camera settings. If you only want the location gone and nothing else touched, Remove GPS from HEIC is the simpler page.
Cleaning is checked rather than assumed. After editing, the tool re-reads its own output and refuses to give you a file that fails: it checks the length, that nothing changed outside the metadata blocks, that the file still parses, that Exif and XMP read back clean, that the original GPS values no longer appear anywhere in the raw bytes, and that the image still decodes to identical pixels. A report per file then shows before and after counts, what was removed and what was kept. Coordinates and serial numbers in the report are masked until you press "Show values that were found".
How to use it
- 01
Add one or more HEIC files
Up to 50 per run. The list shows each name and size before you start.
- 02
Leave Output on Cleaned HEIC
This is the in-place edit. The alternative, a JPG or PNG compatibility copy, rebuilds the picture as a new file that carries no metadata, loses the colour profile and HDR data, and is lossy for JPG; it is checked by re-reading it.
- 03
Choose what to remove
Pick Privacy-safe, Remove everything, or Choose what to remove. For the last one, tick the kinds to delete; the button is disabled until at least one is ticked. The ticked-by-default kinds are location, serial numbers and IDs, and MakerNote.
- 04
Press Clean metadata
Progress shows removal, then verification, for each file.
- 05
Read the Privacy report
Each file gets a Before and After table, plus Removed and Kept lists and a Verified line. Turn on "Show values that were found" to see masked values in full.
- 06
Download
Files are named with a -clean suffix. Several files download as heic-cleaned.zip. If one cannot be cleaned safely, you are offered a JPG or PNG copy of that file instead.
When to use it
Posting a photo publicly
The privacy-safe preset removes location, serial numbers, owner name, comments, MakerNote and XMP while leaving the camera and date, a sensible default for a blog, forum or classified listing.
Handing originals to a client or editor
Keep the capture date, lens and exposure they may want, and drop identifiers, by using privacy-safe or a custom selection with identifiers and GPS ticked.
Removing identifiers but keeping places
A custom run that ticks only serial numbers and owner details leaves the location in your own library, and strips what ties the files to your camera.
A full set at once
A batch of up to 50 photos gets one report each and one ZIP, so a set can be sanitised in a single pass.
Good to know
- 01Tested on pillow-heif output and hand-built files, not on a broad set of genuine iPhone and Android photographs. That is why the verification step exists and why a file that fails it is rejected rather than returned.
- 02MakerNote is treated as an opaque block. It is removed or kept whole, never read or edited inside, and its contents are not analysed.
- 03Metadata stored somewhere other than the Exif and XMP items, such as in a
freebox, cannot be scrubbed, and the verification fails instead of passing. Metadata items of a kind the tool does not understand are left unchanged and listed as warnings. - 04Depth maps and HDR gain maps are kept, because they are image data. The picture itself is not analysed, so faces, signs and landmarks in it stay visible.
- 05The file does not get smaller. Its length is identical, so this is not a way to compress. Use the compressor for size.
- 06Cleaning takes seconds per photo because of the verification decode: about 2 seconds for a 1.6 MP file, and fifty such files took about 54 seconds in my test.
Technical notes
Privacy and limits
Your file stays on your device
This tool runs in your browser with WebAssembly. The file is read into the tab, processed there and discarded when you close it — there is no upload and no account. You can check this yourself in your browser's network panel, and the privacy page lists what analytics does and does not receive.
Limits and checks
Up to 100 MB and 100 megapixels per file; batches of up to 50 files and 500 MB. Files are treated as untrusted input and every output is re-opened and validated before it is offered — see how we handle untrusted files.
Frequently asked questions
Related tools and reading
Further reading
Last updated: . Something wrong or out of date? Tell us — corrections are recorded in the changelog.