Remove metadata from a HEIC photo

What is inside the HEIC

HEIC is a container, like a folder of items. The picture is one item. Camera EXIF (make, model, lens, time, GPS) sits in another, and XMP can sit in a third. On the 3-megapixel test file below, the tool’s Before list shows an AI marker, GPS, camera EXIF, and XMP, and ExifTool counts 25 separate metadata tags in the same file. All of that is read from the file in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Before (what the tool listed)	After (re-scan of the download)
AI / provenance marker: Matched “DigitalSourceType” GPS / location: 31.23040, 121.47370 EXIF: Apple iPhone 15 Pro · 17.5.1 Camera: Apple iPhone 15 Pro Software: 17.5.1 XMP metadata: application/rdf+xml (3071 bytes)	Nothing found. Banner: “Cleaned. 6 fields removed — your picture is unchanged.”

• Download: JPEG, 2016x1512, 1.41 MB (converted from HEIC).
• Second opinion (ExifTool 13.25): 25 metadata tags before, 0 after.
• Pixels: re-encoded as JPEG, so they are not bit-identical to the HEIC.
• Time in the tool: 885 ms in headless Chrome on a server CPU. A phone will be slower.

What you get back is a JPEG

The tool decodes the HEIC in a worker (libheif compiled to WebAssembly), draws the pixels, and encodes a JPEG at 95% quality with no EXIF, XMP, or IPTC in it. It then scans that JPEG with the same inspector, which is the After column above. That is a real conversion, not a metadata edit, so three things change:

Headless Chrome on a server CPU, one run each, so treat the times as an order of magnitude. The test images are synthetic, which is why file sizes go up for two and down for one; a real photo will compress differently. Compare the numbers the page shows for your own file.

• Orientation. The 12-megapixel file is stored as 4032×3024 with a 90° rotation flag. The JPEG is 3024×4032, upright, because the rotation is applied to the pixels before writing.
• Pixels. A JPEG is a second lossy pass, so the pixels are not identical to the HEIC. If you must keep them exactly, strip the HEIC in place with ExifTool: see ExifTool remove all metadata. we ran exiftool -all= on the 3 MP test HEIC and it left no EXIF, GPS or XMP tags.
• Size. A JPEG is usually larger than the same photo as HEIC. If the HEIC was already small for your use, the download can be bigger.

Before (what the tool listed)	After (re-scan of the download)
AI / provenance marker: Matched “Firefly” AI / provenance marker: Matched “DigitalSourceType” GPS / location: 31.23000, 121.47000 EXIF: Apple iPhone 15 Pro · Adobe Firefly 3.0 Camera: Apple iPhone 15 Pro Software: Adobe Firefly 3.0 XMP metadata: application/rdf+xml (465 bytes)	Nothing found. Banner: “Cleaned. 7 fields removed — your picture is unchanged.”

• Download: JPEG, 3024x4032, 550 KB (converted from HEIC).
• Second opinion (ExifTool 13.25): 11 metadata tags before, 0 after.
• Pixels: re-encoded as JPEG, so they are not bit-identical to the HEIC.
• Time in the tool: 1381 ms in headless Chrome on a server CPU. A phone will be slower.

This one also carried a software tag naming an AI generator, so the AI provenance row appears.

When the tool keeps the file as a HEIC

If your browser cannot decode the HEIC, or the image is larger than the limit (64 megapixels on a phone, higher on a computer), the tool does not fail. It removes the EXIF, XMP and C2PA items from the HEIC itself, copies the picture data untouched, and tells you it kept a HEIC. Some apps cannot preview that file, which the page also says. A valid HEIC is not turned away.

Apple’s own switch, and where it stops

On an iPhone you can tap Share, then Options, and turn Location off. Apple documents that in Manage location metadata in Photos. That covers location in the copy you share. It does not claim to remove the camera model, lens, or any AI marker. The phone-side steps, and what to do for a photo that came from ChatGPT or Gemini, are on remove AI metadata from a photo on iPhone.

Before you post the JPEG

• Open the After report. You want “no targeted metadata remaining”, not a count of 0 in your head.
• The file name ends in -cleaned.jpg. Post that file, not the HEIC.
• A Live Photo is a still plus a separate video file. This tool takes the still only; video is not supported.
• For a platform label such as Instagram’s AI info, a clean file is necessary only when the signal was metadata. See what actually works.

A whole camera roll export is one ZIP with Pro; a measured mixed-format run is on bulk EXIF remover.

The browser changes the size

The JPEG is written by your browser’s own encoder, so the same HEIC gives different file sizes in different browsers. We ran heic-iphone-style.heic (2.39 MB) through headless Chrome and headless Firefox on Linux: Chrome returned a 1,482,101-byte JPEG and Firefox a 2,120,905-byte JPEG. Both came back with no GPS, camera, or XMP tags in ExifTool. We did not run Safari.

Questions

Do I get a HEIC back?

Normally no. In the browser the clean copy is a JPEG (a PNG when the HEIC has transparency). The page tells you which one you got. If your browser cannot decode the HEIC, or it is bigger than the decode limit (64 megapixels on a phone), the tool removes the metadata from the HEIC file itself and hands back a HEIC.

Does the JPEG look worse than the HEIC?

It is a second lossy encode (JPEG at 95% quality) of the decoded pixels, so it is not bit-identical to the HEIC. If you need to keep the HEIC and its pixels exactly, ExifTool can strip a HEIC in place; we tested exiftool -all= on a HEIC and it removed the EXIF, GPS and XMP.

Will a portrait photo come out sideways?

In our test, a 4032 by 3024 HEIC marked “rotate 90 CW” came out as an upright 3024 by 4032 JPEG. The rotation is applied to the pixels before the JPEG is written.

Is the location of my iPhone photo really gone?

The After report is a new scan of the JPEG, and ExifTool found no GPS tags in our test downloads. Apple’s own Share sheet has an Options switch that leaves location out of a shared copy; the tool is for when you want a file with all of it gone.

Can I clean a whole camera roll export?

One image is free. Pro is a one-time unlock for unlimited images and a single ZIP of cleaned files, so a folder of HEICs is one run.

Does this remove the AI label from a HEIC?

It removes file metadata such as an AI DigitalSourceType or a C2PA manifest. It does not remove a pixel watermark and it cannot force a platform to drop its own label.

Related guides

• Remove AI metadata from a photo on iPhone
• ExifTool remove all metadata, tested
• Remove EXIF and GPS from photos
• All metadata-removal guides by file type and device
• Open the Remove AI metadata tool on the homepage if you want the general cleaner.
• Short Instagram upload workflow if you only need the four-step version.