Do WebP images have EXIF data?

They can. The WebP container defines an EXIF chunk that holds a standard EXIF block, the same structure a JPEG uses. Whether a given file has one depends on the software that created it. Google's cwebp encoder copies no metadata by default, while other converters and editors may carry EXIF over from the source photo. Inspect the file to be sure.

Does converting a JPEG to WebP remove metadata?

Sometimes. It depends entirely on the converter. With cwebp, metadata is dropped unless you pass the -metadata option. Image editors, CMS plugins and online converters each make their own choice, and some copy EXIF and XMP into the new file. Check the converted WebP with ExifTool or a metadata viewer before you publish it.

Can a WebP file contain GPS location?

Yes. GPS tags such as GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude live inside the EXIF block, and WebP can store a full EXIF block in its EXIF chunk. A WebP made from a geotagged phone photo by a tool that preserves metadata will still reveal where the photo was taken.

Is it safe to delete the ICC profile from a WebP?

It is safe for privacy but can hurt color. Without an ICCP chunk, the WebP specification says software should assume sRGB. If the image was encoded in a wider space such as Display P3, its colors will look duller once the profile is gone. Standard profiles contain almost nothing personal, so keeping them is the usual choice.

WebP Metadata: What It Stores and How to Remove It

WebP metadata is stored in separate chunks inside the file: an EXIF chunk (which can include GPS coordinates, dates and camera details), an XMP chunk (editing history, creator and rights information) and an ICCP chunk (the color profile). You remove it by deleting the EXIF and XMP chunks and clearing the matching flags in the file's VP8X header, which leaves the compressed image data untouched.

That sounds simple, and it is, once you know how a WebP file is put together. This guide walks through the container byte by byte, shows what each metadata chunk can reveal, and explains which tools keep or drop it.

How a WebP file is built: the RIFF container

WebP uses RIFF, the same general-purpose container family as WAV audio and AVI video. A RIFF file is a sequence of chunks. Each chunk starts with a four-character code (a FourCC), followed by a 32-bit little-endian size and then the payload. If the payload has an odd length, one zero padding byte is added so the next chunk starts on an even offset.

Every WebP file begins with the same 12-byte header:

Offset	Content	Meaning
0	`RIFF`	Identifies a RIFF file
4	32-bit size	Size of everything after this field
8	`WEBP`	Identifies the RIFF form as WebP

After that header, the WebP container specification allows three layouts:

Simple lossy: a single VP8 chunk (note the trailing space) holding VP8-compressed image data.
Simple lossless: a single VP8L chunk holding lossless image data.
Extended: a VP8X chunk first, followed by optional chunks for color profile, animation, alpha, the image itself, and metadata.

The key point for privacy: the simple layouts have nowhere to put metadata. A WebP can only carry EXIF, XMP or an ICC profile if it uses the extended layout. So the very first chunk tells you a lot. If byte 12 starts with VP8 or VP8L, the file contains no EXIF or XMP chunk by design.

The VP8X chunk: where WebP announces its metadata

The VP8X chunk is 10 bytes long. Its first byte is a set of flags that tell a decoder which optional features the file uses. The remaining bytes hold reserved bits and the canvas width and height (each stored minus one, in 24 bits).

Flag	Letter in the spec	Set when the file contains
ICC profile	I	An `ICCP` chunk
Alpha	L	Transparency in any frame
EXIF metadata	E	An `EXIF` chunk
XMP metadata	X	An `XMP` chunk
Animation	A	`ANIM` and `ANMF` chunks

The specification fixes the order of the chunks that affect how the image is drawn: VP8X, then ICCP, then ANIM, then the frames or the ALPH and image chunks. Metadata is treated differently. The spec states that metadata and unknown chunks may appear out of order; in its example layouts, EXIF and XMP come after the image data.

That placement matters when you inspect a file. A quick look at the first bytes in a hex viewer shows the VP8X flags, but the actual EXIF payload may sit at the very end of the file, after hundreds of kilobytes of image data.

What WebP metadata can reveal

The EXIF chunk

The payload of the EXIF chunk is a standard EXIF block: the same TIFF-structured data a camera writes into a JPEG's APP1 segment. Everything that can be in a JPEG's EXIF can therefore be in a WebP:

Location: GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude, GPSImgDirection.
Time: DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and time-zone offsets such as OffsetTimeOriginal.
Device identity: Make, Model, LensModel, BodySerialNumber and manufacturer maker notes.
Software: the editor or firmware version in Software.
Orientation: the Orientation tag that tells viewers how to rotate the picture.
A thumbnail: EXIF can embed a small preview image, which may show the picture before you cropped or edited it.

In other words, every privacy question you would ask about a JPEG's EXIF applies equally to a WebP's EXIF chunk; only the wrapper is different.

The XMP chunk

The XMP chunk holds an XML packet in Adobe's Extensible Metadata Platform format. Editors use it for creator names, copyright notices, keywords, ratings, editing history and document IDs that can link an exported file back to its source. XMP can also repeat EXIF data, including GPS. The differences between the three metadata families are covered in EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP. WebP has no dedicated IPTC chunk, so IPTC-style fields usually travel inside XMP.

The ICCP chunk

The ICCP chunk holds an ICC color profile, which tells software how to interpret the color values. The spec says that when this chunk is absent, sRGB should be assumed. That is fine for sRGB images and wrong for anything else, which is why the profile is worth keeping. Our article on ICC color profiles explains what is inside one and why it is rarely a privacy concern.

Unknown chunks

The container also allows chunks it does not define. Readers are told to ignore them, which means a file can carry extra data that ordinary viewers never display. A thorough cleaner should remove anything that is not needed to draw the image.

Where WebP metadata comes from

Cameras and phones rarely save WebP directly. Most WebP files are converted from a JPEG or PNG, and whether metadata survives depends on the converter's choices:

Google's cwebp has a -metadata option with the values all, none, exif, icc and xmp. The documented default is none, so a plain conversion drops everything, including the color profile.
Image editors and export dialogs often have their own metadata checkboxes, and they may default to keeping EXIF.
Website plugins, CDNs and image services that generate WebP versions of your uploads each have their own policy. Some strip, some preserve, some keep only the color profile.
Online converters vary in the same way and rarely say what they do.

Because behavior differs from tool to tool and can change between versions, the only reliable answer is to inspect the file you are about to share or publish.

How to view WebP metadata

Built-in viewers on Windows and macOS are inconsistent about showing metadata for WebP files, so a dedicated tool is more dependable.

ExifTool reads WebP fully. This command lists every tag with its group, which shows you which chunk it came from:

exiftool -a -G1 -s photo.webp

If you only want to know whether location data is present:

exiftool -gps:all -xmp:all photo.webp

Google's webpmux tool (part of libwebp) shows the container structure, including which features are present:

webpmux -info photo.webp

You can also extract a single chunk to a file to look at it, for example webpmux -get exif photo.webp -o photo.exif or webpmux -get xmp photo.webp -o photo.xmp. The XMP file is plain XML you can open in any text editor.

How to remove metadata from a WebP file

Because metadata sits in its own chunks, removing it does not require decoding or re-encoding the image. The compressed VP8 or VP8L data stays byte-for-byte identical, so there is no quality loss.

Option 1: an online tool

Upload the file to our free metadata remover. With the default "Keep same format" setting, it removes the EXIF and XMP data (including GPS, camera model, serial numbers, dates, software and thumbnails) without re-encoding the pixels. It keeps only the ICC color profile and the orientation flag, so colors and rotation stay correct, and it shows you a report of what it found and removed. It accepts up to 10 images at once, up to 25 MB each, and deletes the files 10 minutes after processing.

Option 2: webpmux

webpmux removes one chunk type per command:

webpmux -strip exif photo.webp -o no-exif.webp
webpmux -strip xmp no-exif.webp -o clean.webp

Leave the icc chunk alone unless you know the image is sRGB. Note that removing the EXIF chunk also removes the Orientation tag, which can change how some software displays a phone photo.

Option 3: ExifTool

To remove everything except the color profile in one step:

exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -icc_profile -overwrite_original photo.webp

Without -overwrite_original, ExifTool keeps a backup named photo.webp_original, which still contains the metadata. Delete it before sharing the folder. The ExifTool cheat sheet covers more selective commands, such as removing only GPS.

Option 4: re-encode

Running the image through cwebp again with the default -metadata none also produces a file without metadata, but it decodes and recompresses the pixels. For lossy WebP, that is a second generation of compression. Use it only if you also want to change size or quality. The trade-off is explained in removing metadata without losing quality.

Pitfalls specific to WebP

Orientation

The WebP container spec says nothing about orientation; the only place a rotation instruction can live is the EXIF Orientation tag. Whether a viewer applies that tag inside a WebP depends on the software. Phone photos are often stored sideways with an orientation tag, so if a converter neither rotates the pixels nor copies the tag, the WebP will appear rotated. The safest WebP for the web has its pixels already in the correct orientation. Our guide to EXIF orientation explains the eight possible values.

Stale flags

A hand-edited file can end up with a VP8X flag that says EXIF is present when the chunk is gone, or the reverse. Well-written tools such as webpmux and ExifTool keep flags and chunks consistent. If you write your own stripping script, update the flag byte and the RIFF size field, and keep the padding rule, or some decoders will reject the file.

Animated WebP

Animated WebP files use the same extended layout, with the same single EXIF and XMP chunks for the whole file. The metadata applies to the file, not to individual frames, so removing it works the same way.

Converting a WebP to another format

Converting a WebP to JPEG or PNG may carry the metadata over or drop it, again depending on the tool. Do not count on a conversion as a cleaning step. Treat the new file as untrusted until you have inspected it.

WebP metadata checklist

Check the first chunk: VP8 or VP8L means no EXIF or XMP chunk is possible; VP8X means you need to look further.
Run exiftool -a -G1 -s on the file and look for GPS, dates, Make, Model, serial numbers and XMP.
Remove the EXIF and XMP chunks with a lossless method, keeping the ICCP chunk.
Make sure the image still displays upright in a browser.
Inspect the cleaned file again; our guide on checking that metadata was really removed shows what clean output looks like.
Remember that metadata is only half the story: anything visible in the picture itself, such as a house number or a reflection, stays in the image.