How to Remove Metadata from Photos on Windows 10 and 11

To remove metadata from photos on Windows 10 or 11, right-click the photo in File Explorer, choose Properties, open the Details tab, and click Remove Properties and Personal Information. Choose "Create a copy with all possible properties removed" to get a cleaned duplicate. The feature is quick but not complete, so for sensitive photos use ExifTool or an online metadata remover and verify the result.

This guide covers the built-in method step by step, what it reliably removes and what it has been shown to leave behind, and the two most practical ways to get a fully clean file on Windows.

How to remove metadata in File Explorer

The steps are the same in Windows 10 and Windows 11; only the right-click menu looks different.

1. Open File Explorer and go to the folder with your photo.
2. Right-click the photo and choose Properties. In Windows 11 it appears directly in the new menu; you can also select the file and press Alt + Enter.
3. Open the Details tab. You will see fields such as Date taken, Camera maker, Camera model and, for geotagged photos, a GPS section with latitude and longitude.
4. At the bottom, click the link Remove Properties and Personal Information.
5. In the Remove Properties dialog, pick one of the two options described below and click OK.

Labels may differ slightly depending on your Windows build and language, but the feature has kept the same name and location for many years.

"Create a copy" vs "Remove the following properties"

The dialog offers two different operations, and choosing the right one matters.

For privacy, the copy option is the better default. You keep the original with its dates and camera data for your own archive, and share the copy. Just make sure you send the file ending in "- Copy", not the original next to it.

The in-place option is useful when you want to remove only location but keep the capture date for sorting. Tick the GPS fields (latitude, longitude, altitude) and leave the rest.

Removing metadata from several photos at once

You can select multiple photos of the same format in a folder, open Properties for the whole selection, and use the same link. With "Create a copy", Windows produces a cleaned copy of each selected file. It is a decent way to process a folder of holiday photos, with the limitations described next. For other batch options, see how to remove metadata from multiple photos at once.

What File Explorer's removal leaves behind

Explorer works through the Windows property system: it removes the fields that Windows knows how to read and write for that format. That design has practical gaps.

• Leftover text values. In 2022, security researcher Didier Stevens documented that on fully patched Windows 10 and Windows 11, removing the camera make, model and software from a JPEG deleted the EXIF directory entries but left the text values themselves in the file. Anyone viewing the raw bytes could still read that the photo came from a Canon camera and was edited in GIMP.
• Metadata Windows does not map. Proprietary maker notes, some XMP data written by editing software, and other blocks are not all exposed as Windows properties, so "all possible properties" does not mean all metadata.
• Format support varies. JPEG has the best support. For PNG, WebP and other formats, what Explorer can see and remove depends on the image handlers installed, and the link may be missing or have little effect.
• Error messages. Windows sometimes reports that not all personal properties could be removed. When you see that, assume the file is not clean.

For a quick share of a holiday photo with friends, Explorer's copy option is usually acceptable. For anything sensitive, such as photos of your home, documents, a whistleblower's evidence, or pictures of children, use a tool that removes the metadata segments themselves.

Remove all metadata with an online tool

If you do not want to install software, our free metadata remover runs in Edge, Chrome or Firefox on Windows with no account and no watermark.

1. Drag up to 10 JPEG, PNG or WebP photos (up to 25 MB each) onto the upload area.
2. Keep Keep same format selected so the pixels are not re-encoded.
3. Download the cleaned file, or the ZIP if you uploaded several.
4. For a ZIP, right-click it in File Explorer and choose Extract All.

The tool removes EXIF (including GPS, camera make and model, serial numbers, dates, software, maker notes and embedded thumbnails), XMP, IPTC, comments and text chunks. It keeps only the ICC color profile and the orientation flag, so colors and rotation stay correct, and shows a report of what it found. Files are deleted from the server 10 minutes after processing.

Remove all metadata with ExifTool on Windows

For large folders, automation, or fully offline work, ExifTool is the standard command-line tool. It is free and documented at exiftool.org. On Windows 10 and 11 you can install it with winget from a terminal:

winget install -e --id OliverBetz.ExifTool

Alternatively, download the Windows package from the ExifTool website. Then open Terminal or Command Prompt in your photo folder and use these commands:

By default, ExifTool keeps a backup of each original with _original added to the file name. Add -overwrite_original only when you already have separate backups. The ExifTool cheat sheet explains more options.

A safe routine for cleaning a folder

Cleaning many photos in place is where mistakes happen, so work on a copy:

1. In File Explorer, copy the photos you want to share into a new folder, for example C:\Photos\ToShare. Your originals stay untouched elsewhere.
2. Run exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -icc_profile -orientation -r C:\Photos\ToShare. ExifTool prints how many files it updated.
3. Open two or three cleaned files to confirm they look right and are not rotated, then check one with exiftool -a -G1 -s.
4. When you are satisfied, remove the backup copies with exiftool -delete_original -r C:\Photos\ToShare, which asks for confirmation before deleting the _original files.

Paths with spaces need quotes, for example "C:\Users\You\Pictures\To Share".

How to check that metadata was removed on Windows

1. Open the cleaned file's Properties > Details. Camera maker, model, date taken and GPS should be empty. This is a first check only.
2. For a real check, run exiftool -a -G1 -s cleaned.jpg. A clean JPEG shows only file system information, basic image properties and, if kept, the ICC profile and orientation.
3. Or upload the cleaned file to the online tool; its report lists anything sensitive that is still present.

Our guide on checking that metadata was really removed describes what clean output looks like in more detail.

What does not remove metadata on Windows

A few common assumptions do not hold:

• Copying, renaming or moving a photo keeps every byte, including metadata.
• Compressing into a ZIP preserves the files exactly as they are inside the archive.
• Uploading to OneDrive or another cloud folder stores the original file; a shared link delivers it with its metadata.
• Viewing in the Photos app displays some file information but does not change the file.

Re-saving a photo in an image editor may or may not drop metadata depending on the program and its export settings, and it usually re-compresses the image. If you go that route, check the result as shown above.

Which method should you use?

• Casual sharing, a few JPEGs: File Explorer, "Create a copy with all possible properties removed", then send the "- Copy" file.
• Keeping dates but dropping location: File Explorer in-place removal of the GPS fields only, or exiftool -gps:all=.
• Sensitive photos, PNG or WebP files, or no wish to install anything: the online tool with "Keep same format".
• Whole folders and repeat jobs: ExifTool with -r.
• Always: verify one file before you trust a method for the rest.