Remove GPS and other hidden data before you share a file

The attachment is a copy of more than the page

You attach a photo of a desk, a signed PDF, or a spreadsheet, and the message shows the content you meant. The file can also hold a side record. On a JPG, PNG, or WebP that record is often EXIF: GPS coordinates, the time the shutter fired, the camera or phone model, sometimes a serial number, plus XMP from whatever edited it and IPTC fields such as author. A phone frequently stores the picture sideways and adds an orientation tag so apps turn it upright.

A PDF keeps its own properties: author, the applications that produced it, dates, and an XMP stream that often repeats them. A Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OpenDocument file usually stores the author, the last person who saved it, the company, creation and save dates, a revision number, total editing time, and the template name.

Large social networks often strip location from the copies they show other people. Photos sent by email, as a cloud download, or as a file in a chat app usually keep the block. If you are handing someone the file, assume they can read the fields. Cleaning the copy is the step you control. The original on your disk can stay untouched.

Look at the fields, then strip the copy you will send

Open the photo in the Image Metadata Remover. It lists what it found, and it marks GPS positions and serial numbers. The compressed pixels are copied byte for byte, so this pass does not recompress the picture. Leave Keep the color profile on unless you have a reason to drop it. For the rotation tag, the default writes back a tiny EXIF block that contains only orientation, so the photo does not show up sideways. The other option turns the pixels upright and saves JPG at quality 95, which leaves no EXIF at all and does re-encode.

JPG cleaning removes APP1 (EXIF and XMP), APP13 (IPTC), comments, and other application blocks. It keeps the JFIF header, the ICC profile, and the Adobe block some JPGs need in order to decode. PNG cleaning removes text chunks and the EXIF and time chunks. WebP cleaning removes the EXIF and XMP chunks. You can run up to 20 files, 50 MB each. AVIF and HEIC are outside this tool; convert them first. Anything that is actually drawn in the picture, a street sign or a face, stays. No metadata tool can crop that out.

For a PDF, use the PDF Metadata Remover. You see the author, the apps, the dates, and the XMP before you download the clean copy. Words printed on the pages stay, including a name in a header or on a signature line. EXIF inside a photo that was placed on a PDF page is not touched here. Strip the photo first, then place it, if the location must not ride along inside the image. Password-protected PDFs cannot be opened.

For Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OpenDocument, use the Document Metadata Remover. It empties the property records. Text, images, tables, and styles are copied as they were. Comments and tracked changes are part of the document, so they remain; the tool counts them, and you delete comments or accept changes in your editor before this step if those notes should not go out. Old .doc, .xls, and .ppt files need to be saved in the newer format first. Password-protected files cannot be opened. The next time you save the clean file in Word, Word writes your name and the dates again, so clean it as the last step before you send it.