Remove Metadata from Photo on Mac and Windows

On Windows, File Explorer can strip many photo properties from the Details tab, and on a Mac the Photos app can leave location out of anything you share or export. Neither Microsoft nor Apple documents those tools as removing C2PA Content Credentials, the XMP fields that carry AI edit tags, or the text AI generators write into PNG files. For a full clean, drag the photos into ScrubPhoto in your browser, scrub them, and download one file or a .zip of the whole batch.

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Remove metadata from a photo on Windows with File Explorer

Windows has had a built-in cleaner for years. Microsoft described it in a TechNet tip written for Windows 7, when File Explorer was still called Windows Explorer:

Select one or more photos in File Explorer.
Right-click and choose Properties.
Open the Details tab and click Remove Properties and Personal Information.

The dialog then gives you two choices. The default makes a copy of each file, with the word Copy added to its name, and removes every property Windows can change for that file type. The second option lets you tick individual properties and deletes them from the original file for good. If a property shows no check box, Windows cannot edit it.

Microsoft adds that the option clears metadata but does nothing about the contents of the file. The tip dates from Windows 7, so look for the link at the bottom of the Details tab on your own PC. The wording can change between versions.

Remove location from a photo on Mac with Photos and Preview

The Mac controls Apple documents are all about location. The Photos app gives you three routes.

Hide it per photo. Apple's personal safety guide says to select the photos and choose Image > Location > Hide Location. Revert to Original Location brings it back.
Leave it out of everything you share. Apple's Photos settings page describes an Include location information option under Sharing in the General pane. It decides whether GPS data from a camera, iPhone included, goes out when you share or export.
Export a new file. File > Export > Export [number] Photos writes a fresh JPEG, HEIC, TIFF or PNG, according to Apple's export guide. Export Unmodified Original hands you the original file, so do not count on it to clean anything.

Preview is the quickest way to check a single file. Apple's Preview guide says to open the photo and choose Tools > Show Location Info. If that item is grayed out, the image holds no location. The guide covers viewing the location, not removing it. If your version of Preview offers a remove option in that GPS section, use it, save the file, and confirm the result in the checker.

What the built-in tools miss: C2PA, XMP and PNG text

Location is one field among many. A photo that passed through an editing app or an image generator can carry data that neither company says its tools touch:

C2PA Content Credentials, a signed record of the app that made or edited the file, tucked into its own segment or chunk.
XMP, home of the IPTC digital source type ("created by AI", "edited with AI") and the creator tool.
PNG text chunks. Stable Diffusion WebUI writes its settings under "parameters", and ComfyUI writes "prompt" and "workflow".
Data stuck on after the image ends, like the clip in a Samsung or Google motion photo, HDR gain maps and depth maps.

This is the data that matters when you post. Meta's automatic labels on Facebook, Instagram and Threads look for two of these: C2PA and the IPTC fields. On Instagram that becomes the AI info label (Instagram has also shown it as AI content, and first called it Made with AI). Clearing GPS on a Mac changes none of that. The Instagram page explains how Meta decides, and the C2PA explainer shows what a manifest holds.

Strip metadata from photos in a desktop browser with drag and drop

ScrubPhoto runs inside the browser tab. Files never leave your computer, there is no account, and you can add as many files as you like.

Open the photo metadata cleaner in your browser.
Drag photos or videos from Finder or File Explorer onto the page, or click the button to pick them.
Read the inspection for each file: C2PA and which app signed it, the IPTC digital source type, the XMP creator tool, EXIF camera and software, "GPS: present", PNG text keys and trailing data. Each file also gets a verdict for Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Click Scrub. Each card then reports the KB removed, the items kept, and a "Pixels identical" line.
Click Download for a single file, or Download all (.zip) to save the batch as one archive.

For JPEG, PNG and WebP, the tool never decodes the picture, so a pixel comparison with your original comes out identical. The ICC color profile stays put, which matters for the Display P3 colors in iPhone photos. A rotated photo keeps its single orientation tag and loses everything else. MP4, MOV and M4V videos are cleaned losslessly too and keep their exact file size.

HEIC photos from an iPhone on a Mac or PC

ScrubPhoto cannot clean HEIC losslessly yet. Safari can open HEIC, so there the tool converts it to a quality 95 JPEG and marks the output "re-encoded, not lossless". Chrome cannot open HEIC at all, so there the tool asks you to convert first.

On a Mac, the clean route is a JPEG export from Photos. Choose File > Export > Export [number] Photos, set Photo Kind to JPEG, then drop the JPEG into the tool for a lossless scrub. On Windows, convert in your usual photo app, then drag the JPEG in. Our iPhone guide covers doing the job on the phone.

Check the clean copy before you post

Drop the downloaded file into the checker to see exactly what is left. Metadata is one signal, not the whole story. An invisible watermark, like SynthID from Google or the mark Meta puts in its own AI images, is woven into the picture itself, out of reach for any metadata tool. Platforms also weigh your own disclosure and their own detection, and for photorealistic AI video or realistic audio, platform rules may still require a disclosure from you. A scrubbed file has no metadata trigger left, which is not a promise about what a platform will decide.

Questions about removing metadata on Mac and Windows

How do I remove metadata from a photo on Mac?

For location alone, use Photos: select the photo and choose Image > Location > Hide Location, or turn off Include location information before you share or export. For everything else, including C2PA and XMP, drag the file into ScrubPhoto in Safari or Chrome and download the scrubbed copy.

Does Remove Properties and Personal Information remove C2PA?

Microsoft's tip says the dialog removes the properties Windows can change for that file type, and it never mentions C2PA Content Credentials or PNG text chunks. Run the cleaned file through the checker to see what survived. ScrubPhoto removes the C2PA manifest along with EXIF, XMP and IPTC.

How do I remove EXIF data on a Mac without installing an app?

ScrubPhoto is a web page, so there is nothing to install. Open it in your browser, drop in the photos, scrub, and download. If GPS is all you care about, the Photos sharing setting above works too.

Is it safe to drag photos into a website to strip metadata?

It depends on the site. ScrubPhoto processes everything inside your browser tab and never uploads a file, so your photos stay on your computer, with no account and no server copy.

Can I strip metadata from a whole folder of photos at once?

Yes. Select every file in the folder and drag them onto the page together, since there is no limit on the count. After the scrub, Download all (.zip) saves every clean file in one archive, each with -scrubbed added before the extension.

Will removing metadata on my computer stop the AI info label?

It removes the metadata Meta says it reads, which is the C2PA and IPTC data in the file. It cannot remove invisible watermarks, change a label already on a live post, or override a disclosure you make yourself. Treat it as removing one trigger, not as a guarantee.

Sources

Official pages this page was checked against in October 2026: