Your GPS Data is Stamped on Your Mobile Photos

Most cell phones nowadays stamp each digital photograph with the GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken. If you upload this to Google Photos, google will happily pinpoint the location on Google Maps with a click or two (and some applications may show this information when you view the photo). In addition the photograph will have other metadata such as camera make and model, etc. If you are going to share the photo with others or post it publicly, many times you don’t want this information, particularly, your location information, posted to the web.

Exiftool offers an easy and straightforward method of stripping metadata and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Backup Your Photos Before Stripping Meta Data

Make sure you have a backup of all of your original photos with all metadata before you start and only strip information from a copy of the photo (although by default it also makes a backup of the photo, adding “_original” to the extension).

Using Exiftool To Strip Meta-Data

1. View All Meta Data in Photo

On command line (in windows use CMD):

exiftool picture.jpg

This produces output like this:

ExifTool Version Number         : 10.80
File Name                       : picture.jpg
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 3.3 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2020:01:22 22:26:15-06:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2020:01:22 22:26:46-06:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2020:01:22 22:26:45-06:00
File Permissions                : rw-rw-r--
File Type                       : JPEG
File Type Extension             : jpg
MIME Type                       : image/jpeg
JFIF Version                    : 1.01
Resolution Unit                 : inches
X Resolution                    : 72
Y Resolution                    : 72
Profile CMM Type                : Linotronic
Profile Version                 : 2.1.0
Profile Class                   : Display Device Profile
Color Space Data                : RGB
Profile Connection Space        : XYZ
Profile Date Time               : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
Profile File Signature          : acsp
Primary Platform                : Microsoft Corporation
CMM Flags                       : Not Embedded, Independent
Device Manufacturer             : Hewlett-Packard
Device Model                    : sRGB
Device Attributes               : Reflective, Glossy, Positive, Color
Rendering Intent                : Perceptual
Connection Space Illuminant     : 0.9642 1 0.82491
Profile Creator                 : Jerry S
Profile ID                      : 0
Profile Copyright               : Copyright (c) Jerry S
Profile Description             : sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Media White Point               : 0.95045 1 1.08905
Media Black Point               : 0 0 0
Red Matrix Column               : 0.43607 0.22249 0.01392
Green Matrix Column             : 0.38515 0.71687 0.09708
Blue Matrix Column              : 0.14307 0.06061 0.7141
Device Mfg Desc                 : IEC http://www.iec.ch
Device Model Desc               : IEC 61966-2.1 Default RGB colour space - sRGB
Viewing Cond Desc               : Reference Viewing Condition in IEC61966-2.1
Viewing Cond Illuminant         : 19.6445 20.3718 16.8089
Viewing Cond Surround           : 3.92889 4.07439 3.36179
Viewing Cond Illuminant Type    : D50
Luminance                       : 76.03647 80 87.12462
Measurement Observer            : CIE 1931
Measurement Backing             : 0 0 0
Measurement Geometry            : Unknown
Measurement Flare               : 0.999%
Measurement Illuminant          : D65
Technology                      : Cathode Ray Tube Display
Red Tone Reproduction Curve     : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Green Tone Reproduction Curve   : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Blue Tone Reproduction Curve    : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Image Width                     : 3996
Image Height                    : 6000
Encoding Process                : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample                 : 8
Color Components                : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling            : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Image Size                      : 2996x6000
Megapixels                      : 24.0

2. Remove Only the Location Information from Photo

exiftool -gps:all= -xmp:geotag= picture.jpg

3. Remove Location Plus (caution, will strip other useful information)

Adding an extra flag makes sure other xmp information that may contain gps location is also stripped. Unfortunately, this will also remove other information you may want to keep:

exiftool -gps:all= -xmp-exif:all=  picture.jpg

4. Remove All Metadata from Photo

Type the following

exiftool -ALL=  picture.jpg

Same photo as above, but with ll exif metadata information stripped, leaving only file and technical information:

ExifTool Version Number         : 10.80
File Name                       : picture.jpg
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 3.3 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2020:01:23 09:32:11-06:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2020:01:23 09:32:12-06:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2020:01:23 09:32:11-06:00
File Permissions                : rw-rw-r--
File Type                       : JPEG
File Type Extension             : jpg
MIME Type                       : image/jpeg
Image Width                     : 3996
Image Height                    : 6000
Encoding Process                : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample                 : 8
Color Components                : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling            : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Image Size                      : 3996x6000
Megapixels                      : 24.0

For the full set of features and documentation see the Exiftool website.