HEIC Metadata: View and Remove It, Keep the HEIC File

HEIC is the photo format an iPhone captures when Settings > Camera > Formats is set to High Efficiency, an option Apple introduced with iOS 11. Its metadata lives in separate items inside the file: an Exif item with the camera data and GPS, an XMP item, and sometimes a box with Content Credentials. This tool overwrites those items in place with blank data of the same length, so the photo stays a valid HEIC, the same size and with identical image data.

How HEIC stores its metadata

A JPEG keeps its metadata in segments at the start of the file. HEIC works differently. It is built on the same box structure as MP4 video, and a box called meta acts as a catalog of everything the file contains. Each entry in that catalog is an item: the main picture (often split into a grid of tiles), a small preview, and, on some photos, extra images such as a depth map or an HDR gain map. Metadata items sit in the same catalog:

an Exif item, holding the familiar EXIF block: camera make and model, dates, exposure settings, the GPS directory and Apple's maker notes;
an XMP item, an XML packet that photo apps can use for edits, ratings and location;
top-level uuid boxes, which is where Content Credentials are stored when present.

A separate table records where each item's bytes are in the file. That detail matters, as explained below.

How to clean a HEIC photo

Choose Everything under What to remove, or Location only to hold on to the capture date and camera model.
Select your .HEIC or .HEIF files with Choose files.
Read Found in this file: date taken, location, device, lens and whether maker notes are present.
Confirm the Left in the file line after cleaning.
Download the result. It is still a HEIC file, with "-clean" added to the name.

Why not just convert to JPEG?

Converting is the usual advice for HEIC, and it has two problems. First, conversion decodes the photo and compresses it again as JPEG, which costs quality and usually makes the file larger. Second, it does not necessarily drop the metadata: depending on the app, the EXIF block, GPS included, may be copied into the new JPEG.

Cleaning in place avoids both. The picture data is never decoded, so nothing is lost, and the metadata is gone from the file you share. If you do need a JPEG for compatibility, convert after cleaning.

What in-place cleaning means here

Since the catalog points to items by their position in the file, removing bytes would shift everything after them and break those pointers. So the tool does not remove bytes. It overwrites them:

Everything mode replaces the Exif item with a minimal EXIF block that holds only the rotation flag, then fills the rest of the item with zeros.
Location only mode clears the GPS directory, blanks the maker notes and takes the free-text tags, plus tags the tool cannot name, out of the Exif item, leaving the date and camera tags. The camera, lens and software fields, owner and author names and serial numbers stay as they are written, whatever they hold; a filled name or serial-number field is listed in the result. An Exif item that cannot be read through gets the Everything treatment instead.
In both modes, the XMP item becomes an empty XMP packet padded with spaces, and any uuid box, including Content Credentials, is relabeled as free space and filled with zeros. The trailer box that Samsung phones write, with a UTC time and the mobile network's country code inside, is blanked the same way.
Also in both modes, parts the picture does not need are emptied where they stand: an item of a kind the tool does not keep (Apple's "uri" metadata item, for one), a descriptive property, and the short text fields no reader depends on (the handler's name, item names, the address of a data reference). The Removed line counts them as vendor-specific or unrecognized data. A preview stored as a JPEG item is cleaned the way a JPEG file is.

The output is as long as the input (stray bytes after the last box, if a file has any, are cut off), the catalog still points to valid data, and the image items are byte for byte the same.

What stays inside a HEIC

The extra image items stay. A preview image, a depth map or an HDR gain map is a picture, not a text field holding dates or coordinates, and removing items would mean rewriting the catalog. The result tells you when it matters: a thumbnail that stays appears under Left in the file as an embedded preview image, and a picture item of a kind the tool does not know appears there as unrecognized data. If you are worried that a depth map or preview reveals too much, convert the cleaned file to JPEG or use the redaction tool, which exports a fresh image.

Android phones that save motion photos as HEIC attach the video in a separate box at the end of the file. Both modes fill that box with zeros and report it as extra images, so the file keeps its length and the photo no longer moves. This step has not yet been tried on photos from real phones.

Some relatives of HEIC are turned away with a message: image sequences and animated AVIF files, which hold a movie track with dates and user data of its own, and files with a box outside the short list a still photo uses, where metadata could sit unseen. Export such a picture as a JPEG and clean that. A still AVIF goes through the same steps as a HEIC.

What this tool cannot do

Take the thumbnail item out. As said above, it stays and the result lists it. Bear in mind that an edit on the phone can leave the old thumbnail behind: it may show the photo before the crop.
Inspect the coded picture. The HEVC or AV1 data and the settings a decoder needs are copied untouched. What the photo shows is not this tool's business; the redaction tool handles it.
Strip the color profile. Kept and listed, with any unusual text inside it listed on a line of its own.

If the result says nothing is left, it is speaking of the things the tool checks for. The rest is described under limits.

HEIC on iPhone, Mac and Windows

Apple's support page explains the settings that decide whether you get HEIC at all:

Settings > Camera > Formats: High Efficiency captures HEIF photos and HEVC videos; Most Compatible captures JPEG and H.264 instead.
When you share by AirDrop, Messages or email and the receiving device does not support HEIF, iPhone may send a more compatible format such as JPEG.
When you import to a computer over USB, the photo may be converted to JPEG unless you choose Keep Originals under Settings > Apps > Photos.

You do not need a browser that can display HEIC to clean one. Safari has shown HEIC images since version 17, but this tool never draws the picture, so Chrome, Edge and Firefox on any system clean HEIC files the same way. The iPhone location page covers Apple's own sharing switches.

Where your HEIC goes

The photo is read and patched inside the open browser tab; the file and its metadata are not transmitted anywhere. Because the tool works on a copy, the original HEIC on your device keeps everything it had.

How the HEIC parser works

The page reads the file's box tree, finds the meta box, and parses the item information and item location tables to learn where each Exif and XMP item's bytes are, including items stored in several pieces. It decodes the Exif item's TIFF block to find the rotation flag, GPS directory and maker notes, then builds a list of byte ranges to overwrite. The output is assembled from untouched slices of the original plus those patches. More about the approach and how to verify that the page makes no uploads is on the methodology page.

FAQ

Does the cleaned HEIC open in the Photos app?

Yes. It is a standard HEIC file with valid structure. Only the metadata items are blank.

Why is the cleaned HEIC exactly the same size?

Metadata is overwritten with blank data of the same length rather than cut out. This keeps every internal pointer in the file valid.

Is a .HEIF file handled the same way?

Yes. HEIC is HEIF with HEVC-compressed images, and both use the same catalog of items. The tool reads the structure, not the extension.

Can I see a HEIC's tags before cleaning?

Yes. The EXIF viewer reads HEIC files and lists every tag without changing anything.

Will iCloud or my library keep the original metadata?

Yes. Cleaning a downloaded copy does not change the photo in your library. Share the cleaned copy.

Does this remove the Live Photo video?

A Live Photo's video is a separate MOV file and is not part of the HEIC. Clean it on the video page if you share it. The HEIC and the MOV find each other through an identifier in Apple's maker notes, which cleaning removes in either mode, so the two may no longer be shown as one Live Photo.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-11.

Last updated: 2026-10-17

HEIC metadata: remove it without converting