How to remove metadata from iPhone photos

iPhone photographs are usually HEIC, and browser tools cannot read HEIC. So there are two steps: get a JPEG out of the phone, then strip the metadata from that JPEG.

iOS itself will remove location at share time — in the share sheet, tap Options at the top and turn Location off. That covers the coordinates but leaves the timestamp, device model and vendor blocks. For a full strip, share or export to JPEG, then run the file through the Image Metadata Privacy Tool, which shows you exactly what it found first.

Last reviewed: 2026-09-19. Checked against the tool’s own source on that date.

Step one: getting a JPEG

If the photo was taken with the default settings it is a HEIC file, and neither the ToolAcre Image Converter nor the Image Metadata Privacy Tool will open it. Both reject it with a message rather than returning a file they did not actually process.

Sharing a photo out of iOS generally converts it to JPEG on the way — AirDrop to a Mac, attaching to an email, or the Photos import on Windows all produce JPEG. Copying files off the phone with a cable does not convert, which is the usual reason people end up with HEIC on a computer and a tool that will not read it.

To stop producing HEIC at all: Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible. That changes future photographs only.

Step two: what iOS strips on its own, and what it leaves

The share sheet has an Options control at the top. Turning Location off removes the GPS fields from what you share. It is quick, it is built in, and for a single photo going to one person it is often enough.

It is not a full strip. The capture timestamp, the device make and model, the vendor MakerNote block and any XMP added by editing generally survive. If your concern is specifically "do not tell people where I live", the Options toggle handles it. If your concern is "do not tie these photographs to my phone", it does not.

The toggle also has to be set each time you share in some flows, which makes it easy to forget on the one occasion it mattered.

Step three: strip and verify in the browser

The removal is lossless: the compressed image data is copied through unchanged, so the cleaned photograph is pixel-identical to the JPEG you gave it. That matters more for iPhone photos than it sounds, because the JPEG is already one lossy generation away from the HEIC original and a second re-encode would be avoidable damage.

  1. Open the Image Metadata Privacy Tool and load the JPEG.
  2. Read the highlighted panel. This is the step that tells you whether iOS already removed the location or not.
  3. Remove metadata and download the cleaned copy.
  4. Load the cleaned copy back in. It should report nothing. That confirmation takes five seconds and is the only way to actually know.

Screenshots and edited photos

iPhone screenshots are PNG and carry very little — no GPS, since there was no camera involved. They can still carry a software field and a colour profile, and the tool will show you.

A photograph edited in an app before sharing often gains XMP fields naming the application, and sometimes keeps the original capture data alongside. Editing is not stripping; if anything it adds.

Worked example: one photo for a marketplace listing

A photograph of a sofa, taken indoors on an iPhone, is going into a marketplace listing that anybody can see.

  1. In Photos, share the picture to your computer by AirDrop or email. It arrives as a JPEG.
  2. Load it into the Image Metadata Privacy Tool.
  3. The highlighted panel typically shows GPS coordinates, DateTimeOriginal, Make "Apple", a Model naming the iPhone, and a MakerNote block.
  4. Remove metadata, download the cleaned copy, and load that copy back in to confirm it is empty.
  5. Post the cleaned copy.

Result: A JPEG with no coordinates, no timestamp and no device identifiers, a few kilobytes smaller, and visually identical because nothing was re-encoded. What the picture shows — the room, the window, anything on the walls — is unchanged, because that is image content rather than metadata.

Open the tool

Strip metadata from your converted photos

Works on JPEG, PNG and WebP in your browser and lets you verify the result by reloading the cleaned file. It cannot open HEIC.

What this does not cover

  • HEIC cannot be read by any tool on this site. The conversion step has to happen on the phone or on your computer.
  • The iOS Location toggle removes coordinates only; timestamp, device model and vendor blocks are not affected by it.
  • Converting HEIC to JPEG is a lossy re-encode performed by iOS, before any ToolAcre tool sees the file.
  • iOS menu paths change between versions. The wording above was accurate at the review date; the principle — share or export rather than copy — is stable.
  • Nothing here removes identifying detail visible inside the picture.