ExifCleaner is a desktop application designed to clean metadata from images, videos, PDFs, and other files. It provides users with a straightforward way to remove sensitive or unnecessary information embedded in files.
Key Features:
Support for Multiple File Types: Clean metadata from various file formats including images, videos, PDFs, and more.
Batch Processing: Clean metadata from multiple files at once, saving time and effort.
Selective Data Removal: Choose which types of metadata to remove or retain, offering precise control over the cleaning process.
Preview Before Cleaning: Review metadata before deletion to ensure only unwanted data is removed.
Drag-and-Drop Interface: Easily add files or folders for processing with a user-friendly interface.
Scheduled Tasks: Set up automated tasks to clean metadata on a regular basis.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for photographers, graphic designers, and professionals who handle sensitive information. ExifCleaner helps protect privacy by removing potentially revealing metadata from files, ensuring compliance with data protection standards or simply safeguarding personal details.
ExifCleaner can be installed via winget, making it easy to integrate into your workflow.
README
ExifCleaner
> Desktop app to clean metadata from images, videos, PDFs, and other files.
Features
Fast batch processing via ExifTool's stay-open protocol
Drag and drop files or folders
Free and open source (MIT)
Cross-platform: macOS, Windows, and Linux
Supports 90+ image, video, and document formats (full list below)
Privacy controls: preserve orientation, save as copy, remove macOS extended attributes, preserve timestamps
Folder recursion — drop a folder to process all files inside
Metadata inspection — expand any file to see before/after diff
Dark mode (follows OS preference)
25 languages with in-app language switching
No automatic updates or network traffic — zero telemetry, zero phone-home
Signed and notarized on macOS
What's New in v4.0
ExifCleaner v4.0 is a complete modernization — the first release since v3.6.0 (May 2021). Highlights:
5 new privacy features: preserve orientation, save as copy, xattr removal, preserve timestamps, folder recursion
Metadata inspection: expand any processed file to see exactly what was removed
Language switching: change language from settings without restarting (25 locales)
Below is a full list of supported file types that ExifCleaner will remove metadata for. It's based on which file types ExifTool supports write operations for.
3G2, 3GP2 – 3rd Gen. Partnership Project 2 a/v (QuickTime-based)
3GP, 3GPP – 3rd Gen. Partnership Project a/v (QuickTime-based)
ExifCleaner has the same writer limitations as the underlying exiftool it depends on. Taken from the official website:
ExifTool will not rewrite a file if it detects a significant problem with the file format.
ExifTool has been tested with a wide range of different images, but since it is not possible to test it with every known image type, there is the possibility that it will corrupt some files. Be sure to keep backups of your files.
Even though ExifTool does some validation of the information written, it is still possible to write illegal values which may cause problems when reading the images with other software. So take care to validate the information you are writing.
ExifTool is not guaranteed to remove metadata completely from a file when attempting to delete all metadata. For JPEG images, all APP segments (except Adobe APP14, which is not removed by default) and trailers are removed which effectively removes all metadata, but for other formats the results are less complete:
JPEG - APP segments (except Adobe APP14) and trailers are removed.
TIFF - XMP, IPTC, ICC_Profile and the ExifIFD are removed, but some EXIF may remain in IFD0. (The CommonIFD0 Shortcut tag is provided to simplify removal of common metadata tags from IFD0.)
PNG - Only XMP, EXIF, ICC_Profile and native PNG textual data chunks are removed.
PDF - The original metadata is never actually removed.
PS - Only XMP and some native PostScript tags may be deleted.
MOV/MP4 - Most top-level metadata is removed.
RAW formats - It is not recommended to remove all metadata from RAW images because this will likely remove some proprietary information that is necessary for proper rendering of the image.
Translations
New translations and corrections to existing translations are welcome! See the Adding a Translation section below. Current translation status:
Built with Electron 35, React 19, and TypeScript 5.7 (strict mode). Uses a hand-rolled ExifTool wrapper implementing the -stay_open protocol for fast batch processing.
Run the app in dev mode
git clone https://github.com/szTheory/exifcleaner.git
cd exifcleaner
yarn install
Pull down the latest ExifTool binaries (requires Perl, macOS/Linux only):
ExifCleaner
