Remove Metadata from RAW Photos

A RAW file is the untouched record of what your camera sensor saw, and it carries far more personal detail than a finished JPEG: the GPS position, the capture time, the owner or artist name typed into the camera, and the serial numbers of the body and the lens. A RAW photo metadata remover deletes those fields and leaves the photo data and the settings an editor needs exactly as they were. Add a file above, read what it held, and download a clean copy. RAW files are cleaned on our server and deleted within minutes.

What your RAW file carries

Why strip a RAW file at all

• Handing RAWs to a retoucher or client. They need the picture data, not your home coordinates or your name in the owner field.
• Posting sample files to a forum, a review, a tutorial or a preset shop.
• Entering contests and critiques that ask for the original file.
• Selling or giving away a RAW archive or a set of training files.
• Safety. For photographers who work on sensitive subjects, or who live somewhere they would rather keep private, GPS and serial numbers are a risk when files travel.

What is removed, and what is deliberately kept

Removed

• All GPS tags.
• All dates and times: capture, creation and modification.
• Serial numbers of the body, lens and internal parts. A field ExifTool can delete is deleted. A field a camera marks as required, such as Canon’s body number, is overwritten with zeros. Copies repeated in undocumented parts of the maker notes are found by their bytes and zeroed.
• Owner name, artist, copyright, unique image ID, user comment, comment, software and host computer.
• XMP and IPTC data, including keywords and captions.
• Personal tags inside embedded preview pictures.

Kept

• The sensor data itself. The photo data is not rewritten.
• Camera make and model, so your RAW converter picks the right colour profile.
• Lens model, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and white balance.
• The rest of the maker notes that editing software reads, such as autofocus and colour data, including the shutter count.
• Nikon’s serial number. Nikon uses it, with the shutter count, as a key for the encrypted part of its maker notes, so it is left alone and named in the report. The NEF page explains why.

Why we delete named fields instead of wiping everything

The quick way to clean a photo is to delete every tag at once. On a JPEG that is fine. On a RAW file it can be harmful, because the maker notes hold data that the camera and your RAW converter rely on to develop the picture, and some formats depend on offsets stored in the metadata area. Wiping it all can leave a file that opens wrongly or not at all.

So the tool uses ExifTool to delete a defined list of fields that identify a person or a place, and leaves the rest alone. The cleaned file is a little smaller than the original, and its raw data is unchanged. The five real camera files we tested came out between 1 KB and 175 KB smaller.

Embedded previews: the part most tools miss

Almost every RAW file contains small JPEG pictures for quick viewing: thumbnails, a preview of the whole frame and sometimes a full-size rendering. A preview is a complete little JPEG, and it can carry its own copy of the camera’s EXIF, including capture time, owner and serial numbers. ExifTool, the standard tool for editing RAW metadata, changes the tags of the RAW file but does not look inside those pictures.

So after the main fields are removed, we extract each embedded preview and scan it separately. A preview that still carries personal tags is rewritten with its metadata cut out, which leaves the preview picture identical and your file manager’s thumbnails intact. If a format will not accept the rewrite, that preview is removed instead. If neither works, the report says so and the file is not marked clean. In the report these appear as “embedded preview”.

How often does that matter? In the five real camera files we tested, one preview carried personal tags: the 5.3 MB preview inside an iPhone ProRAW file held the same 14 GPS tags as the file itself, plus the phone model and the date. The previews in the Canon, Nikon and Sony files carried none. It is a gap that is rare on dedicated cameras and real on phones, which is why every preview is checked.

What we tested on real camera files

These are public sample files from the CC0 library at raw.pixls.us. Each went through the production cleaner and was then checked independently with ExifTool, by comparing the raw image data byte for byte, the maker notes tag by tag, and ExifTool’s own validation.

Testing on real files found problems that synthetic files had not, and they are fixed: Canon’s body serial number is stored twice and the second copy was invisible to ExifTool, a date in a thumbnail directory survived the first pass, a colour profile’s copyright line was mistaken for personal data, and a phone’s preview was being deleted instead of cleaned. What we have not tested: RAF, ORF, RW2, PEF and SRW files, drone DNGs, a DNG with the original RAW embedded, and the cleaned files in editors such as Lightroom or Capture One. Open a clean copy in your own software before you rely on it, and keep your originals.

Supported RAW formats

Clean a RAW photo in four steps

1. No account needed to start. Guests can clean 5 RAW photos a month, a free account 10.
2. Add the file. Drag it anywhere on the page or choose it. The upload shows its progress.
3. Wait while it is cleaned. The server removes the fields, deals with the previews and scans the result.
4. Download and read the report. It lists what was found and how many fields remain. Verified clean appears only when none do.

What the report looks like

For a RAW file from a camera with a built-in GPS and an owner name set, the list before cleaning might look like this. The values are examples.

Why RAW is cleaned on our server

RAW files are big, and ExifTool is a program rather than a web page, so these files cannot be cleaned inside your browser the way images and PDFs are. The file is uploaded over HTTPS to our server, cleaned there, and sent back.

• The original is deleted as soon as cleaning finishes.
• The clean copy is kept for at most 15 minutes so you can download it, then deleted.
• We never open or look at the picture. Your account keeps usage counts for limits and billing, and the file name only until the file is deleted.

Check the result yourself

exiftool -a -G1 -s "-*serialnumber*" -ownername -artist -copyright -gps:all -alldates photo.nef

To check the embedded pictures, extract them and run the same command on the result:

exiftool -a -b -W "%f_%t.%s" -PreviewImage -JpgFromRaw -ThumbnailImage photo.nef
exiftool -a -G1 -s -gps:all -alldates -ownername *_PreviewImage.jpg

RAW from phones and drones

Apple ProRAW is a DNG, and we tested one from an iPhone 12 Pro: GPS, dates, device details and XMP were removed, the embedded preview was cleaned and the image data stayed identical. Other phones and drones also write DNG, and the same method applies to them, but we have not tested their files. These files are usually recorded with location switched on, which makes them worth cleaning before they are shared. They often run from 25 MB to over 100 MB, so check your plan’s size limit before you start.

Sidecar files and catalogs

Editing software often keeps settings, ratings, keywords and sometimes GPS in a separate file next to the RAW: an .xmp file for Lightroom, Camera Raw and darktable, or .pp3 for RawTherapee, for example. Those files are not part of the RAW, so cleaning the RAW does not change them. If you send a folder, send the RAW files you cleaned and leave the sidecars out, or review them first. Lightroom catalogs hold keywords and locations as well, so share exports rather than the catalog if you want those private.

Stop the metadata at the source

• In the camera menu, leave owner, artist and copyright empty unless you want them in every frame.
• Switch off built-in GPS or the phone-sync feature when you do not need a geotag.
• Remember that already recorded files keep their data, so clean copies before they leave your control.

What the tool cannot promise

• Every field in every model. Manufacturers store some values in blocks that ExifTool can read but not write. The scan after cleaning counts anything left and names it.
• Nikon’s serial number. It is a decryption key for Nikon’s own data, so it stays and the report says so.
• Anonymity. Faces, places and style are in the picture itself.
• Compatibility with brand-new formats until ExifTool can write to them.
• Shutter count and camera model. They remain, because editors read them and they describe the camera rather than you.

A simple routine for delivering RAW files

1. Copy the files you plan to hand over into a separate folder. Never clean your only original.
2. Clean the copies and check that each report says verified clean.
3. Spot-check one file with ExifTool, using the command above.
4. Leave sidecar files and catalogs out unless you have looked at what they contain.
5. Archive the originals with their serial numbers and locations, which you may need later for insurance, a theft report or your own records.

Many files, or a regular job

RAW photos have a monthly allowance of their own, separate from video. For a whole shoot, the API cleans a RAW file with one request, and the MCP server, included on every plan, lets an assistant such as Claude or Cursor clean the files in a folder on your computer when you ask. See the guide to cleaning many files at once. If you also publish finished JPEGs, use the image metadata remover for those, in your browser.

Frequently asked questions