Protect your privacy by removing metadata information from photos taken with your smartphone before sharing them.
The photos you take with your smartphone contain a lot of information. In addition to the type of camera used, the shooting settings, and the characteristics of the image, the metadata of the photos that you enter also include most of the time the GPS coordinates of the location of the shooting, sometimes even with the exact address of the place.
Therefore, each photo you send to a loved one, or that you share online can potentially reveal the exact location of your vacation, your place of work or worse yet, your home address.
On Windows, deleting EXIF data from your photos is very easy with just a few clicks. On iOS or Android, on the other hand, it will be necessary to go through a third-party application. Here’s how to do it.
Delete metadata on iOS
1. Download ViewExif
Start by downloading the ViewExif app on your iPhone. Offered free of charge, it allows you to consult the metadata of photos stored on your device, and can also be used to delete them.
- Download ViewExif for iPhone (Free)
2. Authorize the application
Launch ViewExif on your iPhone and tap Allow Access to allow the app to access your photos, then tap OK to confirm.
The application itself is presented as a photo gallery. You can therefore explore your different albums and view the images stored on your device.
3. Remove the metadata
There are two possible solutions to remove the metadata contained in your photos. The first is to go directly through the application.
Open an image and tap the eraser icon at the bottom left of the interface. Then tap Remove Metadata to remove the EXIF data from the image.
It is also possible to directly share an image by deleting the EXIF data it contains, directly from the iOS Photos app.
Open an image in Photos, and hit the share button. Scroll through the options, tap the ViewExif extension, and tap the share button again. You can then choose to:
- Save without Metadata
- Share without Metadata
- Share with Metadata
Delete metadata on Android
1. Download Photo Metadata Remover
Go to the Play Store to download Photo Metadata Remover. This free application makes it very easy to consult and delete the metadata of your photos. It can also save you considerable time since it is able to delete EXIF data from your photos in batches.
- Download Photo Metadata Remover for Android (Free)
2. Remove the metadata
Open Photo Metadata Remover and press Choose Photos to select the image you want to remove EXIF from. In the pop-up that appears, tap Continue. The application wants to save the cleaned images in a directory separate from the camera roll.
Select your backup directory and allow the application to access it.
Deleting the EXIF data contained in the image should be done instantly. You can find the cleaned image of its metadata in the backup directory you chose previously.