Your photos carry hidden data.

GPS coordinates, device serial numbers, timestamps — baked into every image you share.

StripMeta removes them instantly, entirely in your browser!
No uploads, no servers, no tracking. Just control over your privacy and the information you share.

No uploadsNo serversNo trackingOpen source

Work in progress. Strips known metadata thoroughly, but format complexity means no tool can guarantee every trace is removed.

Drop photos or folders here

JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, HEIC and more

Settings

⚙️ Processing

Paranoid mode *

Always re-encode via canvas — strips everything, but output is always JPEG. Small quality loss.

Only use when you're really paranoid.

Process files even if no metadata is found *

If disabled, files without detectable metadata are skipped.

Try processing unsupported files *

Tries to re-encode unsupported formats to JPEG via the canvas method.
Not recommended — this frequently causes errors.

Process experimental formats (HEIC, AVIF) *

Metadata stripping for some formats is experimental. Disable to skip these formats entirely.

Copy skipped files to output *

Include skipped files unchanged in the saved output, so it is always complete.

🎨 Appearance & Usability

Show results after processing *

Opens the About panel after your first run to show what was removed.

Warn before leaving with files loaded *

Shows a browser confirmation if you try to close or reload the tab while images are loaded.

Frosted glass & animations *

Adds blur effects to floating elements and enables decorative shine animations.

Image previews *

Shows a thumbnail of each file. Turning this off can improve performance for large batches or files, potato computers or when loading from NAS or slow drives.

🛠️ Technical stuff

Remember settings and stats *

Settings and stat counters are saved in your browser's local storage and restored on your next visit if enabled.
Don't worry, the server never sees them.

⚠️ Previously saved settings and stats still exist in local storage!

Help & Reference

What does each setting do?

Paranoid mode

Skips lossless stripping entirely and re-encodes every file via canvas instead. Removes every trace of metadata, guaranteed, but always converts the output to JPEG with a small quality loss. Turning it on also overrides "Process files even if no metadata is found" and "Process experimental formats" for as long as it's active, since everything gets re-encoded regardless. Canvas re-encoding itself depends on your browser being able to decode the format at all, though: Safari can decode Apple's HEIC natively, but Chrome and Firefox can't, so HEIC files have no fallback and get skipped there even with Paranoid mode on. Off by default.

Process files even if no metadata is found

Off by default, files with no detectable metadata are skipped since there's nothing to remove. Turn this on to have them processed and included anyway — useful if you'd rather get a complete, freshly re-saved batch back than a mix of processed and untouched files.

Try processing unsupported files

For formats with no lossless handler and that your browser also can't decode for the canvas fallback (so genuinely unsupported, not just "experimental"). Off by default — not recommended, since the same lack of browser decoding support that makes a format unsupported usually makes the canvas attempt fail too.

Process experimental formats (HEIC, AVIF)

HEIC and AVIF stripping is still experimental (lossless, but newer and less battle-tested than the JPEG/PNG/WebP handlers). On by default; turn it off to have those files skipped entirely rather than processed.

Copy skipped files to output

Any file StripMeta skips, whether it's already clean, unsupported, or an experimental format you've opted out of, is left out of the saved output by default. Turn this on to include skipped files unchanged instead, so the result always has one output file per input file.

Show results after processing

Opens the About panel automatically after your first run, showing a summary of what was removed. On by default.

Warn before leaving with files loaded

Shows a browser confirmation if you try to close or reload the tab while files are still loaded, so you don't lose unsaved work. On by default.

Frosted glass & animations

Adds blur effects to floating elements and enables the small transition/scale animations used across the app, including this modal's own open/close animations. Purely cosmetic. On by default.

Image previews

Shows a thumbnail for each file. Turning this off can help performance with large batches, slow drives, or older machines. On by default.

Remember settings and stats

Saves your settings and stat counters in your browser's local storage so they're restored on your next visit. Turning it off doesn't delete anything already saved, but it stops using it too — no new writes, and old settings and stats stop being restored. If you had settings or stats saved from before, a "Clear now" button appears right here to remove them. See the local storage section for exactly what's stored.

Changed settings get a small * next to their label, so you can see at a glance what you've changed from default. It disappears again once that setting is back to its default value.

Each group above (Processing, Appearance & Usability, Technical stuff) has its own Reset button, which only appears once something in that group is non-default. Click it once to preview the reset immediately — the changed settings blink and the button switches to "click again to confirm" with a five-second countdown. Click it again to confirm, or leave it alone and it reverts back to what you had.

What do I do with the ZIP file?

When you strip more than one file, StripMeta bundles all of them into a single stripped-photos.zip and downloads that instead of handing them back one by one. Strip just a single file, and there's no ZIP — it downloads directly.

A ZIP is just a container: one file holding a compressed copy of a set of other files and folders. It isn't a StripMeta-specific format — every major OS can open one without installing anything extra:

Windows: double-click it, then right-click → "Extract All" to unpack the files to a folder.
macOS: double-click it and Archive Utility extracts a folder right next to it, automatically.
Mobile / other: the built-in Files app (iOS/Android) or a free tool like 7-Zip handles it the same way.

What's inside depends on how you added your files:

Dropped individual files

stripped-photos.zip
├── 🖼️ vacation.jpg
├── 🖼️ selfie.jpg
└── 🖼️ document.png

Used "Open folder"

stripped-photos.zip
└── 📁 Paris trip
    ├── 📁 day 1
    │   ├── 🖼️ IMG_001.jpg
    │   └── 🖼️ IMG_002.jpg
    └── 📁 day 2
        └── 🖼️ IMG_003.jpg

Individually selected or dropped files land flat at the top level. "Open folder" instead keeps your original folder structure exactly as it was, subfolders included.

What does StripMeta store in local storage?

Short version: toggle states, a theme choice, and small usage counters — never file names, file contents, or anything sent anywhere. Here's every key it can write, with its current value in your browser right now:

Key	What it means	Current Value
stripmeta-paranoid	Paranoid mode toggle	—
stripmeta-process-clean	Process-clean-files toggle	—
stripmeta-process-unsupported	Process-unsupported-files toggle	—
stripmeta-process-experimental	Process-HEIC/AVIF toggle	—
stripmeta-include-skipped	Copy-skipped-files toggle	—
stripmeta-no-glass	Inverse of the glass/animations toggle	—
stripmeta-warn-unload	Warn-before-leaving toggle	—
stripmeta-auto-about	Show-results-automatically toggle	—
stripmeta-show-previews	Image-previews toggle	—
stripmeta-no-persist	Set only if you've turned off “Remember settings and stats”	—
stripmeta-theme	Your theme choice: light, dark, or auto	—
stripmeta:stats_v1	Counts only — files cleaned, GPS tags removed, timestamps removed, bytes stripped, plus when it was last updated	—
stripmeta:about_shown_v1	Set once the About panel has auto-opened, so it doesn't do it again	—
stripmeta:changelog_seen_v1	The last changelog version you've seen	—
stripmeta-visits	How many times you've opened the app — only used to time the install prompt	—
stripmeta-install-declined	Set if you dismissed the install-as-app prompt	—

The Clear now button in Settings removes the nine toggle keys at the top of that list, plus the saved stat counters and the About panel's auto-shown flag — theme, changelog-seen, visit count, and the install-prompt preference are left alone since they're considered necessary for the app functioning as intended.

An update is available!