How to remove metadata from photos, documents and videos

How to remove metadata, and why to strip it before sharing

Metadata is information the device or program writes inside the file, beyond what you see. A photo stores where it was taken, the phone model and the date. A Word document records who created it and who edited it last. A video carries tags with title, author and the program that made it. To remove metadata, upload the file to the right tool (photos, Office or audio/video) and click "Clean and download": the content is copied as-is, with no recompression, and only the hidden data goes. Everything happens in your browser.

How to remove metadata from photos: location (GPS), device and date (EXIF)

Every phone photo stores a block called EXIF with the exact location where it was taken, the device model and the date. Posting that photo on social media or in a classified ad can expose your home address without you noticing. The cleanup removes that whole block, plus the editing tags (XMP), the agency tags (IPTC) and comments, while keeping the pixels intact, because the image is not recompressed. The color profile is preserved, so the colors do not change. An AI-generated image carries one more label, which this cleanup does not remove: see how to remove the hidden AI mark from an image.

1. Open the clean image data tool.
2. Upload the JPG or PNG photo you are about to share: one or several.
3. Click "Clean and download". Each photo downloads as a separate file, with "-limpo" added to the name, and the screen confirms: "Done! We removed the hidden data, including the location." or "The image was already clean — no hidden data found.".

• Only JPG and PNG are cleaned. WebP and GIF make it into the list, but show the notice that cleaning currently works on JPG and PNG images: convert them to JPG or PNG first with the change format tool.
• In PNG, the text blocks, the EXIF and the modification date are removed.
• Side effect: the orientation flag lives in the EXIF and goes away with it. A photo that only stood upright thanks to that flag may show up sideways after cleaning: if that happens, rotate it with the rotate image tool.
• Clean the photo after any edit: some editors write the data back when saving.
• Screenshots usually have no GPS, but photos taken with the camera almost always do.
• The content credential that AI-generated images carry is not removed by this cleanup. For that, use the remove AI mark tool, which deletes the credential along with the other hidden data.

How to remove metadata from Word, Excel and PowerPoint: author, company and history

Word, Excel and PowerPoint files store who created the document, who edited it last, the company name and even how much time was spent on it. When you send a proposal or a résumé, that data reveals behind-the-scenes details you may not want to show. The tool accepts .docx, .xlsx and .pptx: upload the file, click "Clean and download" and get the copy with "-limpo" added to the name and the message "Done! We removed the author, company, dates and editing time." (or "The document was already clean — no personal data found.").

• What goes: author, last editor, creation and modification dates, title, subject, description, keywords, category, revision number, last printed date, company, manager and total editing time.
• What stays: the entire content of the document (text, tables, images and formatting), intact.
• What the cleanup does NOT touch: comments, tracked changes and the names of whoever made each revision. If the document has tracked changes, accept or reject them all and delete the comments first.
• Old formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) are not accepted: open the file and save it as .docx, .xlsx or .pptx first.

Audio and video: strip tags, chapters and the program that made the file

Music and video files carry hidden tags with title, artist, album, the program that created them and sometimes dates. Before sending a video by message or uploading an audio file, it is worth cleaning those tags. The dedicated tool accepts video in .mp4, .mov, .webm, .mkv, .avi and .m4v and audio in .mp3, .wav, .m4a, .aac, .ogg, .opus and .flac. The content is copied as-is, never re-encoded, so no quality is lost; embedded chapters are removed too. Click "Clean and download", watch the progress bar (it says "Large files may take a little while") and get the file with "-limpo" added to the name and the message "Done! We removed the tags and metadata from the file.".

• In audio, only the sound track is kept: the embedded album cover, which may be a personal photo, is discarded along with the tags.
• In video, all tracks (picture, sound, embedded subtitles) are preserved; only the tags and chapters go.
• The audio and video engine is heavy (tens of MB) and is downloaded the first time you use the tool, so you need internet at that moment. Your file, however, never leaves your device.
• There are no options: it is a single button for every format.

When to clean metadata, and when you don't need to

• A photo of your home, neighborhood or kids for social media, a classified ad or a group chat: always clean; the GPS gives away the address.
• A résumé, business proposal or contract sent to a client: clean; the name of whoever wrote it and the editing time are your business.
• A video or audio recorded on your phone to send to strangers: clean; the program and the date sit in the tags.
• A file that stays only with you or in your backup: no need; metadata helps you organize and date it.
• A photo you want the social network to sort by the right date: remember the date goes away too.

Everything happens in your browser: the file is processed on your own device and is never sent to any server. Keep the original in a private folder and share only the "-limpo" copy.

Limit: up to 2 GB per file, with no limit on how many. Large videos depend on the browser's memory; if one fails, try one at a time.

In short: removing metadata is one click per file, with no quality loss, across three tools, one for JPG and PNG photos, one for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and one for audio and video. What goes is what identifies you; what stays is the content. PDF is not one of the three: for it, see how to remove hidden data and metadata from a PDF. And if you only want to check what a file carries before cleaning it, see how to view a file's metadata.