How to Remove EXIF Data from Photos with Free Tools

The EXIF data embedded in the photos you took may contain surprising amount of data. On some photo sharing sites I have seen people complaining about people removing the EXIF information because they are interested in learning photography from other peoples photos. However there are always reasons people want to remove this information. So here are some free tools for you if you really want to do so.

1. IrfanView. you can remove the EXIF information from individual photo or many photos using batch process.

2. Jhead. This is what I use. It can do a lot more on the EXIF data.

  • To remove the EXIF data from all files in current directory, type the following in windows command shell:
jhead -de *.jpg
  • To remove only the comment field by third party programs (e.g. Photoshop)
jhead -dc *.jpg
  • To get rid of all unnecessary data
jhead -purejpg *.jpg

3. jStrip. It has both command-line and graphical user interface. It also supports batch processing.

4. ExifTool. Another powerful command-line tool.

  • Remove all meta information
exiftool -all= *.jpg
  • Alternative method: rename exiftool to the following name, drag and drop your files on top of the icon (note: original file will be overwriten)
exiftool(-overwrite_original_in_place -all=).exe
Posted in: Digital photography, Photo Editing on September 21st, 2007. Trackback URI
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Comments

  • Thomas

    Hi! There’s also a small website that removes Exif and IPTC data from Images. For quick-cleaning a picture, no software installation has to be done and it works on other operating systems than MS Windows, too.
    It can be found here: http://www.exif-remove.de/

  • Petr Mitrichev

    Thank for the article! And if you’re afraid of using an online tool and want to have a nice GUI for batch removing an Exif (even the selective removing of tags), try this Exif eraser.

  • Robert

    This is great for trying explicitly order images iTunes folders.
    When using a PC, iTunes sometimes uses the EXIF data to order your images within a directory, sometimes the filename and sometimes the filedate.

    So you need to rename the files so they sort in the order you want them displayed, then remove all of the EXIF data (this app) and finally a tool to reset all timestamps

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