What image metadata is
Metadata is data about the image, not the visible pixels. JPEG and some other formats can store an EXIF block with camera make and model, exposure settings, orientation, date and time, and sometimes a GPS latitude and longitude.
Screenshots and graphics may carry little or no EXIF. Phone camera photos are the usual case where location and device details matter for privacy.
File size on disk can grow slightly because of metadata, but the privacy issue is what the fields reveal about where and when the photo was taken.
Why remove metadata before sharing
A photo shared online can keep its EXIF unless the platform strips it on upload. Some sites remove location automatically. Others do not. A direct file attachment by email or chat often keeps the full block.
Removing metadata before export limits what travels with the picture: no map pin from your home address, no serial-style camera fingerprint, no embedded timestamp you did not intend to publish.
Metadata removal does not blur faces or hide license plates. Use blur, pixelate, or crop for visible content. Metadata work is about hidden fields in the file.
How PixDazzle exports drop EXIF
Every PixDazzle tool and effect uses the same export path. The editor decodes your file with createImageBitmap, which loads pixels into memory and does not carry the source EXIF into the bitmap.
When you download, the tool renders those pixels onto a canvas and encodes a new blob with canvas.toBlob as PNG, JPEG, or WebP. That encode contains image data only, not the original file's metadata block.
The file you picked on disk is unchanged. Only the new download is stripped. Closing the tab does not rewrite your camera roll.
Confirm on the file you will upload
Check properties on the downloaded export, not on the original in your gallery. If privacy depends on it, verify every time.
Remove metadata with PixDazzle tools
You do not need a separate metadata toggle. Any export that processes the image and offers a download produces a re-encoded file.
Compress Image is the usual choice when you also want a smaller file. Resize Image and Crop Image strip metadata when you change dimensions or framing. PNG to JPG, JPG to PNG, WebP to JPG, and JPG to WebP strip metadata when you change format.
Open the tool, add the photo, adjust if needed, pick PNG or JPEG in the download panel, and save. Grayscale Image, Blur Image, and the effects use the same encode step on download.
- Smaller file for sharing: Compress Image, then download JPEG or WebP.
- Same pixels, new file: JPG to PNG or PNG to JPG with default settings.
- Resize or crop for a platform: Resize Image or Crop Image, then download.
Check that metadata is gone
On Windows, right-click the downloaded file, open Properties, and look for a Details tab. On macOS, open the file in Preview, choose Tools, then Show Inspector, and read the EXIF tab if present.
Online EXIF viewers exist, but uploading a sensitive photo to a third-party site defeats the purpose. Prefer local inspection when the image is private.
If fields still appear, confirm you opened the PixDazzle export from your Downloads folder, not the camera original. Re-download if you edited settings after an earlier save.
