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| meta_title | title | icon | description | cover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remove PII with Metadata Scrubbers and Data Redaction Tools - Privacy Guides | Data and Metadata Redaction | material/tag-remove | Use these tools to remove metadata like GPS location and other identifying information from photos and files you share. | data-redaction.webp |
When sharing files, be sure to remove associated metadata. Image files commonly include Exif data. Photos sometimes even include GPS coordinates in the file metadata.
Desktop
MAT2
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MAT2 is free software, which allows the metadata to be removed from image, audio, torrent, and document file types. It provides both a command line tool and a graphical user interface via an extension for Dolphin, the default file manager of KDE.
On Linux, a third-party graphical tool Metadata Cleaner powered by MAT2 exists and is available on Flathub.
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Mobile
ExifEraser (Android)
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ExifEraser is a modern, permissionless image metadata erasing application for Android.
It currently supports JPEG, PNG and WebP files.
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The metadata that is erased depends on the image's file type:
- JPEG: ICC Profile, Exif, Photoshop Image Resources and XMP/ExtendedXMP metadata will be erased if it exists.
- PNG: ICC Profile, Exif and XMP metadata will be erased if it exists.
- WebP: ICC Profile, Exif and XMP metadata will be erased if it exists.
After processing the images, ExifEraser provides you with a full report about what exactly was removed from each image.
The app offers multiple ways to erase metadata from images. Namely:
- You can share an image from another application with ExifEraser.
- Through the app itself, you can select a single image, multiple images at once, or even an entire directory.
- It features a "Camera" option, which uses your operating system's camera app to take a photo, and then it removes the metadata from it.
- It allows you to drag photos from another app into ExifEraser when they are both open in split-screen mode.
- Lastly, it allows you to paste an image from your clipboard.
Metapho (iOS)
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Metapho is a simple and clean viewer for photo metadata such as date, file name, size, camera model, shutter speed, and location.
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Downloads
PrivacyBlur
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PrivacyBlur is a free app which can blur sensitive portions of pictures before sharing them online.
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Warning
You should never use blur to redact text in images. If you want to redact text in an image, draw a box over the text. For this, we suggest apps like Pocket Paint.
Command-line
ExifTool
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ExifTool is the original perl library and command-line application for reading, writing, and editing meta information (Exif, IPTC, XMP, and more) in a wide variety of file formats (JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PDF, RAW, and more).
It's often a component of other Exif removal applications and is in most Linux distribution repositories.
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Deleting data from a directory of files
exiftool -all= *.file_extension
Criteria
Please note we are not affiliated with any of the projects we recommend. In addition to our standard criteria, we have developed a clear set of requirements to allow us to provide objective recommendations. We suggest you familiarize yourself with this list before choosing to use a project, and conduct your own research to ensure it's the right choice for you.
- Apps developed for open-source operating systems must be open source.
- Apps must be free and should not include ads or other limitations.