Every photo you take on a phone carries a small dossier inside the file: the exact GPS coordinates where you stood, the device that took it, the software version, the capture time, and sometimes even the camera's serial number. Most people never see any of it, because image viewers don't show it. But anyone you send the original file to can read it in seconds.
That's why I built Drop Metadata, a free tool that strips hidden metadata from photos and videos without ever uploading them.
What's actually hiding in your files
Here's the kind of thing a single phone photo can reveal:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| GPS | 37.774887, −122.419388 |
| Device | iPhone 15 Pro |
| Software | iOS 17.2 |
| Captured | 2026-01-15 10:30:00 |
| Serial | Camera / lens serial number |
| C2PA | AI provenance manifest |
Post that photo of your new desk setup or your kid's first day of school, and you may have shared your home address along with it.
Drop Metadata removes all of it: GPS coordinates, camera make and model, capture software, timestamps, author and copyright fields, camera and lens serial numbers, XMP editing history, and C2PA content credentials.
Why "no upload" was non-negotiable
Most free "metadata remover" sites work by uploading your file to their server, cleaning it there, and sending it back. That means the very file you're trying to protect, GPS location and all, gets handed to a stranger first.
So the core rule for Drop Metadata was simple: the file never leaves your device.
- The file is read straight from disk into browser memory. No network request is made.
- Every embedded field is listed by category before anything is removed, so nothing is stripped blindly.
- The clean file is rebuilt locally and downloaded straight back to you.
No upload, no account, no server, no copy of your file anywhere. A nice side effect: it's instant, because there's no upload or download round trip.
Zero quality loss
A lot of tools "remove" metadata by re-encoding the whole image, which quietly degrades quality every time. Drop Metadata doesn't touch the pixels.
Metadata lives in its own containers, separate from the image or video data: EXIF and XMP segments in JPEGs, metadata chunks in PNGs, and metadata boxes inside MP4/MOV files. Drop Metadata rewrites only those containers and copies pixel data and video samples byte for byte. Nothing is re-encoded, so the output is visually identical.
It works on video too
Video is the part people forget. Phones embed GPS and device tags inside MP4 and MOV containers as well. Drop Metadata cleans them at the container level, so location and device tags are stripped without re-encoding a single frame, and the file size stays effectively identical.
Supported formats: JPG, PNG, MP4, MOV, any size.
📱 Get the Android app
Most of the photos worth worrying about never touch a laptop. They go straight from your camera roll to a marketplace listing, an email attachment or a "send as file" chat. So I built Drop Metadata for Android to clean them right where they live.
- See before you strip. The app lists every field it finds by category, and plots the photo's GPS location on a map, before anything changes.
- You choose what goes. Each category has its own switch. Remove the location but keep the date, clear the camera details but keep your copyright, or wipe everything in one tap.
- Photos and videos. JPEG, PNG, MP4 and MOV. Video is cleaned at the container level, so no frame is re-encoded.
- Fully offline. No server, no account, no sign-up, and it works with no internet connection at all. The Play Store data-safety label says no data collected and none shared.
- No quality loss. Pixels and video frames are copied byte for byte, and photo orientation is preserved, so portrait shots stay upright.
A quick reality check on "but social media strips metadata anyway": the big platforms usually do, as a side effect of re-encoding. Email, messaging apps sending files, cloud links, marketplaces and forums usually don't. Cleaning the file before it leaves your phone is the only reliable approach.
👉 Download Drop Metadata on Google Play
🙋 I'm looking for Android testers
The app is brand new, and I'd really appreciate real-world feedback. If you have a few minutes:
- Install it and open a photo straight from your camera.
- Tell me in the comments which fields it found, and whether anything looked wrong or missing.
- Try a video too, and let me know your phone model if anything breaks.
Bug reports are just as welcome as praise.
Try it
👉 dropmetadata.com: drop in a photo and see what it's been saying about you.
I'd love feedback from the DEV community, especially on formats you'd like supported next, or metadata fields you've seen leak that I should check for. Drop a comment below!
Top comments (0)