Remove Metadata From PNG Files
PNG has a reputation as the 'clean' format because screenshots rarely show camera info. It's not deserved: PNGs carry their own metadata system — text chunks, timestamps, and increasingly full EXIF blocks — written silently by the software that made them.
This tool strips all of it, without recompressing the image.
Optimised for PNG · JPG and WebP work here too
The metadata PNG files actually carry
A PNG is built from typed chunks. Alongside the image chunks, the format defines metadata chunks: tEXt, zTXt and iTXt for key-value text (author, description, source, XML packets), tIME for a last-modified timestamp, and eXIf — added to the standard in 2017 — for a full EXIF block identical to what JPGs carry, GPS included.
Editors and exporters use these freely. Design tools write their names into text chunks; some converters copy the entire EXIF block, coordinates and all, from a source JPG into the PNG they output.
Screenshots deserve a check too
Screenshots are among the most-shared PNGs, and while they carry no camera data, the capturing tool often stamps software names and timestamps into text chunks — enough to contradict a claim about when or how a screenshot was made. AI image generators also embed provenance records into PNG chunks, which is precisely how many 'AI-detector' sites identify generated images.
If it matters that a PNG says nothing about its origin, the metadata layer has to go — and it can, without touching the pixels.
How the PNG strip stays lossless
Every PNG chunk is self-contained, with its own label, length and checksum. That means metadata chunks can be removed whole while the critical chunks — the header with the image dimensions, the palette, the compressed image data, the terminator — are copied through untouched. The cleaned file decodes to pixels that are bit-identical to the original.
PNG is a lossless format to begin with, but many 'cleaners' still run the image through a re-encode, which can change compression and inflate file size. Structural removal keeps the file exactly as the original encoder produced it, minus the metadata.
What's removed and what's kept
Removed: all text chunks (tEXt, zTXt, iTXt — including XMP packets), the tIME timestamp, and the eXIf block with any GPS record inside. Kept: dimensions, bit depth, palette, transparency, gamma and colour-profile chunks, and the image data itself. The per-file report itemises every removed chunk with its size, and dropping the cleaned file back in shows an empty report.
Frequently asked questions
Do PNG files really contain EXIF or GPS data?
They can. The PNG standard added an eXIf chunk in 2017, and files converted from phone JPGs sometimes carry the full EXIF record over — coordinates included. The viewer above will show you exactly what any given PNG holds.
Will removing metadata change how my PNG looks?
No. Colour-critical chunks like the palette, transparency and colour profile are preserved, and the image data is copied byte for byte. Only non-visual metadata chunks are deleted.
Are my photos uploaded to a server?
No — photos are cleaned entirely inside your browser tab using JavaScript. You can verify this yourself: open DevTools, switch to the Network panel, and watch it while you clean a photo — zero file transfers. Only non-image formats (PDF, video, audio) use our cleaning server: encrypted in transit, processed immediately, deleted immediately, never stored.
Does this remove AI-generation watermarks from PNGs?
It removes metadata-level provenance records (text/XMP chunks), which is where most generators write them. Pixel-level watermarks woven into the image itself are a different mechanism and survive any metadata strip.
