On a stock or marketplace upload, metadata is not housekeeping; it is the product description the platform reads. Keywords decide discovery, the rights fields decide what a buyer may do, and the descriptive set as a whole decides whether the file looks professional. ExifToolGui V6.3.12, Frank Bijnen’s maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, prepares those fields through its Workspace, where Artist, Copyright and Keywords are edited and saved to batches of files at once.

This guide builds an upload-ready copy set: polish the descriptive fields, make a deliberate location decision, and verify the exact files you will upload. It completes the sharing guidance in strip metadata before sharing or selling and lives in the Metadata Tasks hub. The program is on the download page.

Build Upload Copies, Keep Masters Untouched

Marketplace preparation edits files for one destination’s rules, which may differ from the next destination’s. Work on a copy set named for the destination, prepared from your fully tagged masters. The masters keep your complete archive metadata; each upload set carries the trimmed, polished version that destination expects.

This separation also protects you commercially. If a platform later changes its metadata handling, or a listing needs correction, you regenerate the upload set from masters rather than reverse-engineering what an upload copy happened to contain. Preparation is a repeatable export step, not a one-way edit of the only copy.

Polish Artist, Copyright and Keywords as a Set

Apply the credit workflow from edit Artist, Copyright and Keywords with a seller’s eye. Artist should be the name or business the licence will name. Copyright should be a complete, current rights statement. Keywords should be written for a buyer searching the platform: the subject, the place at the level you are willing to publish, the activity, the mood and the concepts a designer searches by.

Do this as a batch base plus per-photo pass. The sitting’s shared terms go on in one selection-wide save; then open the strongest frames individually and add their specific terms. Uniform thin keywords across a whole set waste the batch advantage, while purely individual editing wastes your evening; the two-layer method is the professional middle.

• Artist: the licensing name, consistently.
• Copyright: a complete current rights statement.
• Keywords: buyer-search terms, shared base plus specifics.

Make the Location Decision Explicitly

Location is the one field where marketplace preparation and privacy pull in opposite directions, so decide it per set rather than by habit. General region information often helps a travel or landscape listing sell and is safe to keep. Precise GPS coordinates of a private property, a sensitive natural site or a home are a different matter and should be removed from upload copies using remove GPS and location data.

Whatever you decide, make the upload set match the decision uniformly. A set where half the files carry exact coordinates and half do not is the signature of an unconsidered upload, and it leaks the very positions the careful half tried to protect, since buyers can correlate frames from one shoot.

Verify the Exact Files You Will Upload

Before uploading, read the upload copies, not the masters, end to end in the Metadata panel, using the full-view habit from view every tag. Confirm the descriptive fields survived preparation, the dates read correctly, and no field holds internal notes, client names from a different job, or draft text never meant to publish.

Then check one structural point: descriptive data can live in IPTC and XMP in parallel, and platforms read families differently. If a destination reads the family your preparation did not write, the listing will look empty despite your work. Aligning the families during preparation, the same equalising instinct used for dates, prevents the emptiest and most avoidable upload failure.

One Set Per Destination, Prepared the Same Way

Different destinations read metadata differently and ask for different emphases, so keep one prepared copy set per destination rather than one universal upload folder. Name each set for its destination, prepare it from the same masters with the same routine, and regenerate a set wholesale when its destination’s guidance changes, instead of hand-patching individual listings across months.

Keep a short preparation note inside each set’s folder: which fields were polished, what location decision was applied, and when the set was generated. When a listing underperforms or a rights question arrives, that note is the difference between checking a fact in a minute and reconstructing a workflow from memory, and it makes the next destination’s set faster to build because the decisions are already written down.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should marketplace uploads keep keywords and copyright?
Yes. Unlike anonymous public sharing, a marketplace reads descriptive and rights metadata as part of the product. Prepare and polish it rather than stripping it.

Should I include exact GPS in stock uploads?
Decide per set. A general region usually helps discovery and is safe; precise coordinates of private or sensitive places should be removed from the upload copies.

Why do my keywords not appear on the platform?
The platform may read a different metadata family, IPTC versus XMP, from the one you edited. Verify both families in the upload copies and align them during preparation.

Prepared, verified upload copies turn metadata from an afterthought into part of the product. The Metadata Tasks hub holds the supporting tasks, from credit editing to location removal, that feed this final preparation step.

A scanned print carries the date of the scanning session, not the day the picture was taken, and some scans carry no capture date at all. Timelines then file a 1980s childhood photo under last Tuesday. ExifToolGui lets you set a real DateTimeOriginal on those files visually: the tool is V6.3.12 by Frank Bijnen, the maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, and the date-setting workflow is its Workspace plus Modify date functions.

This guide covers choosing a defensible date, writing it to one scan or a sitting’s worth of scans, and keeping approximate dates honest. The single-date mechanics are shared with changing DateTimeOriginal. Both guides sit across the Metadata Tasks hub and the Tutorials hub; the program is on the download page.

Decide the Real Date, and How Sure You Are

Work from evidence on and around the print: dates on the back, a dated event the photo shows, clothing and ages that bound a range, or a lab stamp on the border. Write down what you know in three grades: an exact day you can defend, a month or season you are confident of, or a year that is a best estimate. The grade decides what you write into the file.

For an exact day, set that full date. For a confident month with no known day, a conventional choice inside the month, recorded in your notes as approximate, keeps sorting sane without pretending to a precision you do not have. For a year-only estimate, mid-year is the common convention. What matters is that your archive notes preserve the uncertainty the metadata field itself cannot express.

Set DateTimeOriginal on One Scan

Open the scan in the GUI, select it, and set DateTimeOriginal in the Workspace to the date you decided, following the same steps as the general DateTimeOriginal guide: enter the value, save, then re-select the file and confirm the stored value reads back. Scanners often write their own software tags and the scanning date into other fields; the capture field is the one timelines read, so it is the one to set.

If the same session produced a stack of scans from one event or one roll, select the whole sitting and set the shared date once in a batch, as batch-editing a whole folder describes. Individual frames that you can place more precisely can then be adjusted one by one on top of that base correction.

• Grade the evidence: exact day, month, or year.
• Set DateTimeOriginal in the Workspace and re-read it.
• Batch one sitting together, then refine individuals.

Equalize Copies and Name the Files

After setting the capture date, run the Modify menu’s DateTime equalize on the scans so EXIF and XMP copies agree; otherwise a catalogue reading the other family will keep filing the scan under the scanning date. This is the same divergence problem explained in EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP, and scans hit it constantly because scanner software writes partial metadata.

With real dates stored, renaming becomes meaningful: apply rename photos by capture date to the scan folder, and decades of prints settle into chronological names that interleave correctly with born-digital photos from the same family archive.

Keep the Scanning Facts Too

Setting a capture date does not require erasing the scan’s own history from your records. Keep an archive note, at folder level, recording when and from what the scans were made, especially where originals are fading prints whose condition matters. The photo file tells when the picture was taken; your notes tell how this digital copy came to be.

Resist back-filling false precision later. If a relative supplies the exact date for a photo you estimated, correct the file then, gladly, and note the correction. An archive maintained that way, estimates labelled and corrections welcomed, stays trustworthy in a way a confidently invented archive never does.

Sort Scans Into the Timeline Gradually

A family archive rarely gets dated in one sitting, and it does not need to be. Work in sittings of one roll, one album page or one event at a time, setting the dates you can defend and leaving the rest clearly in the scanning-date state rather than guessed. A partly true timeline, where dated scans sit correctly and undated ones are visibly unprocessed, is more useful than a fully populated timeline of mixed fact and invention.

Enlist relatives as evidence, not as an afterthought. A shared folder of undated scans with a simple question, who remembers when this was, produces the event names and holiday years that anchor a whole sitting at once. Feed each answer into the files while the conversation is fresh, with the certainty grade from this guide recorded in your notes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What date should a scan show, scanning date or photo date?
The photo’s capture date. DateTimeOriginal means when the picture was taken, and timelines, sorting and renaming all interpret it that way.

What if I only know the year a photo was taken?
Set a conventional mid-year date so the scan sorts correctly, and record in your archive notes that the date is a year-level estimate, not a known day.

Why does my catalogue still show the scanning date?
The capture time may also exist in XMP, or the catalogue may be reading a different copy. Run DateTime equalize after setting the date so EXIF and XMP agree.

Real capture dates rescue scans from the digital present and return them to the family timeline. Work through the remaining date and description tasks in the Metadata Tasks hub to finish the archive.

Buried in a photo’s EXIF and maker notes sit identifiers most owners never look at: the camera body’s serial number and the lens data recorded at capture. ExifTool reads maker notes from around thirty camera makers, and ExifToolGui V6.3.12, Frank Bijnen’s maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, surfaces what ExifTool finds in its Metadata panel and file list, including EXIF and XMP fields usable for browsing.

This guide shows how to view serial and lens information where the GUI and ExifTool actually surface it, what to do when a field is absent, and the privacy call to make before sharing files that contain body identifiers. It supports the sharing decisions in strip metadata before sharing and lives in the Metadata Tasks hub. The program is on the download page.

Where Serial and Lens Data Live

Camera serial numbers are typically stored in EXIF fields or inside the manufacturer’s maker notes, the proprietary block each maker appends for its own extra data. Lens identification similarly appears as EXIF lens fields or maker-note entries naming the lens model and sometimes its own serial. Because makers differ, the exact field name and even its presence differ between brands and generations.

That variability is why this guide promises viewing where the data is surfaced, not a universal field address. Select a photo, open the Metadata panel with a broad workspace, and look through the EXIF group and any maker-specific group the panel lists. A body serial that exists will read as a plain identifier among the camera fields.

Read the Values Across a Set of Photos

A single photo tells you its own body and lens. A set tells you more: stepping through a folder in the file list, watch the serial value change when a second body entered the shoot, and watch the lens values segment the set by glass. Photographers use this to audit which body shot an event, to sort files by camera, and to confirm insurance records against reality.

V6.3.12 improved HEIC support so EXIF and XMP tags are usable in the file list, which makes this kind of scanning practical beyond JPEGs on current systems. If a column you need is missing, field definitions for the file list and Workspace accept explicit tag forms, as Workspaces explained covers, so a serial field can be promoted into your everyday view.

• Serial: EXIF or maker notes, brand-dependent.
• Lens: EXIF lens fields or maker-note entries.
• Absent field usually means the camera never wrote it.

When a Field Is Missing or Unreadable

Absence is normal and not a fault. Some bodies write no serial into files, some write it only in maker notes that a previous edit stripped, and exports from editors frequently drop maker notes entirely while keeping standard EXIF. A file that has been through a full clean, as in remove all metadata, will have neither serial nor lens data to view.

Do not invent values to fill gaps. If a workflow needs a body identifier for a file that lacks one, record it externally, in the archive catalogue or folder notes, rather than writing a guessed serial into the photo. Metadata you author should be limited to values you know are true, the same rule this site applies to dates on scanned photos.

The Privacy Call Before Sharing

A body serial number links files to one physical camera, and through registration or sale records, potentially to a person. For public sharing copies, treat serial data like location: remove it unless the destination needs it. A GPS-group removal alone will not necessarily clear serial fields in EXIF or maker notes, so a set destined for anonymous publication deserves either a broader removal or a verified read-through.

For sales and warranty contexts the calculus flips: a buyer or a service desk may legitimately want the body and lens data a file carries. Keep masters complete, decide per destination, and verify the actual sharing files with the viewing steps above, not with assumptions about what a previous export probably did.

Record Bodies and Lenses While the Data Is There

A practical use of serial viewing is building your own kit record before you need it. Step through a recent folder per camera, note each body’s serial and the lens identifiers your files carry, and keep that list with your insurance or household records. The data is sitting in your photos today; extracting it after a theft, from the handful of files that happen to survive elsewhere, is the hard way to do the same job.

Repeat the record when kit changes. A new body’s first shoot adds its serial to your files automatically, and a two-minute pass through those files updates the record while the shoot is fresh. Lenses sold or replaced can be marked from the dates their identifiers stop appearing, giving the record a timeline that memory alone would blur within a year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the camera serial number stored in a photo?
Usually in an EXIF field or in the manufacturer’s maker notes. The exact location and field name vary by brand, and some cameras do not write one at all.

Can I see which lens took a photo?
Where the camera recorded it, yes: lens model information appears in EXIF lens fields or maker-note entries and can be viewed in the Metadata panel.

Should I remove serial numbers before sharing?
For public or anonymous sharing, yes, treat body serials as identifiers to strip. Verify the sharing copies afterwards, because a GPS-only removal may leave serial fields behind.

Serial and lens data are small fields with outsized uses, for auditing your own archive and for identifying your kit in public files. View them deliberately via the Metadata Tasks hub workflows, and decide per destination whether they travel.

Photo metadata is not one list; it is several families stored side by side in the same file. EXIF carries the camera’s record, IPTC carries the publishing description tradition, and XMP carries Adobe-era descriptive and editing data. ExifToolGui V6.3.12, Frank Bijnen’s maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, exists to make all of it visible: viewing all metadata ExifTool recognises was a stated goal of the original GUI from its first release.

This guide explains what each family holds, how to view every tag for a selected photo, and why the same fact, especially a date, can appear in more than one place. It is the reading skill behind every other guide in the Metadata Tasks hub. The program is on the download page, and panel customisation is covered in Workspaces explained.

EXIF: The Camera’s Record

EXIF is written at capture. It holds DateTimeOriginal, exposure settings, camera and lens identification, and the maker notes in which manufacturers store their own extra data. When a guide on this site talks about fixing a capture date or checking a serial number, it is almost always talking about EXIF values, because EXIF is what the camera itself recorded.

EXIF is also the most fragile family in one specific way: the GUI’s own documentation history notes the original program used UTF-8 for all display and editing, and non-UTF-8 EXIF content can display as odd characters. A strange string in an old file is usually an encoding artefact of display, not a second, hidden message in the photo.

IPTC and XMP: The Description Families

IPTC comes from the news and publishing world and holds descriptive fields: captions, keywords, credit and rights in their classic forms. XMP, Adobe’s XML-based family, holds a parallel descriptive set plus editing history from tools that write it. A photo that passed through a catalogue may carry rich XMP while its IPTC is empty, or the reverse for a press-workflow file.

For the viewer, the practical lesson is to check both before concluding a file has no description. Artist, Copyright and Keywords, the fields edited in the Artist, Copyright and Keywords guide, can live in either family, and professional pipelines often read one family preferentially, which is why marketplace preparation checks both.

• EXIF: capture facts written by the camera.
• IPTC: classic publishing description fields.
• XMP: descriptive data plus editing history.

View Every Tag for One Photo

Select a photo in the file list and read the Metadata panel as a full inventory, not a highlights reel. The panel follows your workspace definition, so a narrow panel hides families by design; switch to a broad definition, or browse beyond the Workspace view, when the question is what else is in this file rather than editing a known field.

Work top to bottom and note any surprise: a location you forgot was recorded, a serial number, a software tag naming an editor. This read-through is the audit step recommended before sharing in strip metadata before sharing, and the discovery step before removal in remove all metadata. You cannot judge a file you have not fully read.

When the Same Fact Appears Twice

Dates are the classic duplicate: capture time can sit in EXIF and be mirrored in XMP, and two tools can then disagree about which copy they read. That is why the Modify menu includes DateTime equalize, which aligns EXIF and XMP date-times after a correction, a step built into this site’s DateTimeOriginal and time shift guides.

Treat every duplicate the same way: decide which value is true, write it, then equalise or update the parallel copy so the file tells one story. A file whose families disagree will look fixed in one program and broken in another, which is the most confusing metadata bug of all because each observer is honestly reporting what they read.

A Reading Order for Unfamiliar Files

When a file arrives from someone else, a client, a relative, an old backup, read it in a fixed order and the inventory becomes fast. Dates first: do EXIF and XMP agree, and is the value plausible? Description second: whose credit and keywords are these? Location third: is there GPS, and should it be there? Provenance last: which software tags name the tools this file has already passed through?

That order mirrors the risk each family carries. Dates decide sorting and timelines, descriptions decide attribution, location decides privacy, and provenance explains surprises in the other three. Two minutes per unfamiliar batch, in that order, replaces the vague sense that a file looks fine with a checked statement of what it actually contains.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between EXIF, IPTC and XMP?
EXIF is the camera’s capture record. IPTC is the classic publishing description set. XMP is a descriptive and editing-history family. One file commonly carries all three at once.

Why does my photo show two different dates?
Capture time can be stored in both EXIF and XMP, and the copies can diverge after partial edits. Align them with the DateTime equalize function after any date correction.

Can ExifToolGui show tags outside my workspace?
The Workspace panel shows the tags your definition lists. For a full inventory, use a broad definition or the wider metadata view so families outside your editing panel are not hidden.

Read a file completely before you edit, clean or sell it: that one habit prevents most metadata mistakes. Continue through the Metadata Tasks hub for the removal, date and preparation tasks that start from this view.

Every photo you upload carries more than the picture. Capture location, home-area coordinates from everyday shots, camera serial information and software traces all travel inside the file unless you remove them. ExifToolGui, in its current V6.3.12 maintained by Frank Bijnen as a fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, gives you the removal side of that decision in the Modify menu, while its Workspace keeps the credit side one edit away.

This guide is the decision layer: what to strip for public sharing, what to strip for selling, and what to keep in both cases. The mechanics live in remove GPS and location data and remove all metadata from a photo. All three sit in the Metadata Tasks hub; the program is on the download page.

The Risk Is Mostly Location, Then Identity Clues

GPS coordinates are the sharpest exposure: a precise position on a home photo names an address, and a pattern of positions names a routine. Remove location from every copy that goes to a public or semi-public destination, without exception. The removal workflow is a group removal in the GUI, verified field by field, as the GPS guide linked above details.

Below location sit the identity clues: camera serial numbers and lens data that link anonymous posts to one photographer’s kit, examined in view camera serial and lens data, and descriptive fields you may not have meant to publish, such as internal notes in captions. A quick read of the full tag list, the habit from EXIF vs IPTC vs XMP viewing, catches these before upload.

What to Keep: Credit, Copyright and Useful Context

Stripping is not the same as blanking. Your Artist and Copyright tags are how a shared photo continues to name its author after re-posts strip everything else away socially. Keep them on public shares unless the destination explicitly requires a fully clean file. The graded approach, GPS out and credit in, is the default this site recommends, and it is a two-minute batch in the GUI.

Keywords and captions deserve the same judgment. Public-facing subjects and places help a portfolio be found; private details, exact addresses, children’s school names in keyword form, do not belong in a public file. Edit the sharing copies’ descriptive fields in the Workspace rather than assuming the master’s tags are all publishable as-is.

• Always remove: GPS and location from public copies.
• Judge per destination: serial data, notes, private keywords.
• Usually keep: Artist, Copyright, public descriptive tags.

Selling and Marketplaces Have Their Own Rules

Stock and marketplace uploads invert some instincts: there, descriptive metadata is part of the product. Titles, keywords and rights information are read by the platform and by buyers, so a fully blanked file underperforms and may violate the upload guidance. Prepare destination-specific copies instead of reusing your most-stripped set, following prepare photo metadata for marketplaces.

Even for selling, location still deserves a decision. A landscape’s general region is a selling point; the exact coordinates of a sensitive site or a private property may not be yours to publish. Strip precisely, keep commercially, and document which version went where, so a later rights question can be answered from your archive.

A Repeatable Pre-Upload Routine

Make the routine boring so it never gets skipped. Export or copy the sharing set into a destination folder. Open it in the GUI. Remove GPS from the whole selection. Read one file’s complete tag list end to end. Confirm Artist and Copyright read as intended. Then upload from that folder only, never from the archive.

Routines beat intentions because uploads happen when you are tired, rushed or on a phone-shaped deadline. The folder discipline carries the safety: if it is in the sharing folder, it has been through the strip and the read-through, and anything still in the archive has not been cleared for release.

Teach the Habit Where the Photos Live

Sharing rarely happens at a desk with this guide open. It happens from the folder, in a hurry, often from the preview the operating system offers. That is why the routine in this guide is built around folders rather than intentions: a destination folder that only receives stripped, verified copies makes the safe action the easy action, even at midnight, even from a phone-paired workflow.

If others in a household or a small team share from the same archive, the folder rule is the version of this guide they need. Nobody has to memorise tag families; they only have to know that public files come from the sharing folder, and that getting a file into that folder means it passed the strip and the read-through described here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do platforms strip metadata for me anyway?
Some platforms remove some metadata on display copies, but you cannot rely on which tags, and originals or downloads may retain them. Strip your own copies before upload.

Should I strip metadata from photos I sell?
Strip location where it is sensitive, but keep and polish descriptive and rights metadata: marketplaces read it, and it is part of what you are selling. See the marketplace preparation guide.

What is the single most important tag to remove?
GPS position. It converts a photo into an address with a timestamp, and it is the tag senders most often forget is inside the file at all.

Decide once, apply by routine: location out, credit in, destination rules respected. The Metadata Tasks hub holds the removal mechanics and the marketplace preparation that complete the workflow.

Sometimes the right sharing copy is a blank slate: no capture date, no camera data, no location, no software traces, nothing but the image itself. ExifTool’s documented capability includes deleting meta information individually, in groups, or altogether, and ExifToolGui V6.3.12, Frank Bijnen’s maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s Windows GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, surfaces that removal through its Modify menu’s Remove metadata entries.

This guide explains what altogether actually removes, tag family by tag family, how to run a full removal on prepared copies, and how to verify the result. If you only need location gone, the narrower remove GPS and location data guide is the better tool. Both are in the Metadata Tasks hub; the program is on the download page.

What a Full Removal Deletes

A full removal clears the metadata families a photo normally carries. EXIF goes: capture time, exposure, camera and lens identification and the maker notes a camera writes. GPS goes: every coordinate and altitude. IPTC and XMP descriptive data goes: captions, keywords, Artist and Copyright included. File-format structures such as ICC profile information and thumbnail data are metadata too, and a maximal clean treats the file as image data plus nothing else.

Two things do not change. The pixels are untouched, so the picture looks identical, and the file-system properties Windows manages, such as the file’s own name and its copy dates on disk, are not photo metadata at all. Understanding that boundary prevents both false comfort and false alarm: a cleaned photo can still be a file whose name reveals plenty, so rename sharing copies sensibly as well.

• EXIF: dates, exposure, camera and lens data, maker notes.
• GPS: all position tags.
• IPTC and XMP: captions, keywords, Artist, Copyright.

Prepare Copies and Choose the Destination First

Full removal is the most destructive metadata operation in this guide series, and it is irreversible on the file you run it on. Decide the destination before running it: a file for a context where even a camera model is unwanted justifies a full clean; a file for your portfolio site usually does not, because your Copyright and credit are exactly what a full clean deletes.

Copy the files into a dedicated sharing folder named for the destination, so cleaned and uncleaned versions can never be confused. Run the operation only inside that folder. Your masters, with dates, positions and credit intact, stay in the archive where viewing every tag and all other tasks remain possible.

Run the Removal on the Selection

Select the prepared copies in the file list and use the Modify menu’s Remove metadata functions to delete the metadata altogether rather than group by group. The GUI passes the operation to ExifTool, which rewrites the selected files without their metadata. A whole sharing set can be cleaned in one batch pass, following the selection discipline in batch-editing a whole folder.

Expect the cleaned files to be slightly smaller, since the metadata blocks are gone, and expect photo software to show them as undated, uncredited images with no camera information. That blankness is the success state here, not a sign of damage: open one and confirm the image itself displays normally before trusting the batch.

Verify Blank, Then Decide About Credit

Verify file by file in the Metadata panel: the tag list for a cleaned file should be empty of the families listed above. If a file still shows descriptive tags, it sat outside the selection during the run; clean it again individually. Do not upload a set where only most files were verified, because upload mistakes concentrate in exactly the unverified remainder.

Finally, make a deliberate credit decision. A fully cleaned file carries no Copyright, so contexts where attribution matters call for the lighter pattern instead: remove location only, keep Artist and Copyright, as in strip metadata before sharing or selling. Full removal is a tool for specific destinations, not a default for everything you share.

File Names and Folders Still Speak

A blanked file in a folder named with a client, a school or an address still tells a story, and a file name carrying a date and place tells more. Full removal handles the inside of the file; the outside deserves the same thirty seconds. Rename cleaned copies neutrally and send them from a neutrally named folder when the destination is the reason you cleaned them in the first place.

Conversely, do not let a cleaned file drift back into your archive and masquerade as a master. Keep cleaned sets in their destination folders, clearly separate from the archive tree. A dateless, creditless file discovered among masters years later cannot be re-enriched from itself; its information survives only because the real master was filed, and stayed, somewhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does removing all metadata change the picture itself?
No. The image data is untouched and the photo looks identical. Only the stored information about the photo is deleted.

Is full removal reversible?
Not on the cleaned file. Run it on copies prepared for the destination, and keep your fully tagged masters in your archive.

Should I remove all metadata from everything I post online?
Usually not. Most sharing is better served by removing GPS while keeping credit and copyright. Reserve full removal for destinations that justify a blank file.

Altogether removal, used deliberately and verified blank, produces a truly clean sharing file. For the graded options between untouched and blank, work through the Metadata Tasks hub.

A photo’s GPS tags can state where it was taken to within a few metres. That is useful in your own archive and a genuine exposure in a file you send to strangers. ExifToolGui gives you a visual way to remove that location data: the program, in its current V6.3.12 by Frank Bijnen, a maintained fork of Bogdan Hrastnik’s GUI for Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, includes Remove metadata entries in its Modify menu, and ExifTool itself is documented as deleting meta information individually, in groups, or altogether.

This guide removes the GPS and location group only, leaving dates, camera data and your credit intact. For the broader sharing decision around it, see strip metadata before sharing; for deleting everything, see remove all metadata from a photo. Both live with this guide in the Metadata Tasks hub. The program is on the download page.

Work on Sharing Copies, Not on Your Masters

Location removal is destructive to the file you apply it to: once the GPS tags are written out, the positions are gone from that copy. That is the goal for a file headed to a marketplace, a forum or a client, and a loss for your master archive, where geotagged originals power maps and place searches. Copy the files first and clean the copies.

Open the copies folder in the GUI and select a photo you know was geotagged. Confirm the GPS fields are populated in the Metadata panel before removing anything: an empty GPS section on the test file would make the whole exercise unverifiable. If your files were never geotagged, there is nothing to remove, and the check itself is the result.

Remove the GPS Group With Remove Metadata

Select every copy that needs cleaning, then use the Modify menu’s Remove metadata entries and target the GPS and location information. Removing by group is the right granularity here: ExifTool deletes meta information by group as well as altogether, and the GUI’s removal workflow follows the same idea, so the date, exposure and descriptive tags survive while the coordinates go.

Apply the removal to the full selection in one batch run, as described in batch-editing a whole folder. One pass over a prepared sharing set is safer than cleaning files one by one across an evening, where the tenth file is exactly the one that gets forgotten and uploaded with its location still inside.

• Clean copies, never the geotagged masters.
• Target the GPS and location group only.
• Run the removal once over the whole sharing set.

Verify That No Coordinates Remain

Verification is the step that makes removal real. Re-select each cleaned file, or step through the set, and confirm the GPS fields now read empty in the Metadata panel. Check also any location panel view your workspace offers: latitude, longitude and altitude should all be absent, not merely zeroed in a way that still names a place.

Spot-check with the map view as well: a file with no position has nothing to plot. If one file still shows coordinates, it was probably not in the selection during the removal run; include it and repeat. A verified set, checked file by file at the GPS fields, is the only kind worth uploading.

What Stays, and When to Remove More

After a GPS-only removal, the photo keeps its capture date, camera and lens information, and any Artist, Copyright and Keywords you set, which is normally the right sharing balance: no location, but credit and context intact. If the destination also warrants hiding camera serial numbers or every other tag, that is a bigger operation, covered in removing all metadata.

Remember that a photo you geotagged yourself, using geotagging from a GPX track log, deserves the same masters-and-copies discipline: archive the geotagged master, clean the shared copy. Location is data you can always remove from a copy and can never invent back into a master you cleaned by mistake.

Check the Copies Your Software Exports Too

Photos reach sharing destinations through exports as often as through direct uploads, and exporters handle metadata inconsistently: one preset preserves everything, another strips some families, a third adds its own software tags. Do not assume an export is clean because the master copy you cleaned was. Run the GPS verification from this guide on the exported files themselves, in the folder they will actually be sent from.

Build the check into the destination folder habit from the main guide: if a file is in the sharing folder, its GPS fields have been read and found empty by you, on that file, in its final exported form. That single rule covers direct copies, editor exports and phone transfers alike, and it survives every future change in your software’s export defaults.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does removing GPS delete the photo’s date or credit?
No, when you remove by group. Targeting the GPS and location entries leaves DateTimeOriginal, camera tags and descriptive tags such as Artist and Copyright in place.

Can removed GPS data be recovered from the same file?
Treat removal as permanent for that file. That is why the workflow cleans copies and keeps geotagged masters untouched in your archive.

How do I know the removal worked?
Re-open the files and check the GPS fields are empty in the Metadata panel, and that the map view has no position to plot for them.

GPS removal by group, on copies, with file-by-file verification, is a two-minute habit that prevents the most common photo privacy mistake. The Metadata Tasks hub collects the related cleaning and preparation guides.