Remove Metadata From a Photo on iPad

The site already has an iPhone still-photo page and Android EXIF pages. iPad is the missing tablet path: same iOS family as iPhone, bigger screen, Files as a first-class app, Apple Pencil habits, and a lot of AirDropped camera rolls from a phone that never got wiped. People treat the iPad as a ‘clean’ work surface because they edit in Procreate or Pages. The JPEG they dropped into a slide still has DateTimeOriginal and, if Location Services were on for Camera on the phone that took it, GPS.

iPhone screenshot stills are remove metadata from an iPhone screenshot. Android’s EXIF path is how to remove EXIF data from a photo on Android. This page is Safari-on-iPad: picker, HEIC, Split View, and the share sheet that still prefers Recents.

What an iPad-bound photo typically still contains

If the still came from iPad Camera with Location Services on, GPS is in the file. If it came from iPhone via AirDrop original quality, assume the phone’s tags came along — AirDrop is a copy, not a wipe. DateTimeOriginal, Make, Model, and Software (Photos, Pixelmator, a third-party editor) are the usual set. iPad model strings in Make/Model are identifying in a small fleet (‘which family iPad posted this’).

Screenshots on iPad are a different object: they usually do not inherit Camera GPS from a photo you were looking at. They also do not clean that photo. Two files. This page is the photo (JPEG/PNG). A screenshot-of-a-photo myth is a separate article in this batch.

HEIC from Camera is not what this tool opens. Save as JPEG in Photos (or Files) first, then wipe that JPEG. Wiping a JPEG you made from HEIC does not rewrite the HEIC still in the library.

How to strip on iPad

1. Export JPEG or PNG if you have HEIC. Confirm the file is actually on-device, not an iCloud spinner.
2. Open Safari (full Safari). In-app browsers inside Mail or Slack mishandle pickers. Split View with Files on one side is useful: you can see names.
3. Open the MetadataWipe tool on this device. Pick the JPEG/PNG. Read GPS and Make before you strip so you know the wipe did something.
4. Download the cleaned file (the name includes -metadatawipe). Re-open that download in the same panel. Tags you care about should be gone.
5. Share the named download from Files. Recents in Photos is still the master.

Apple Pencil in Markup is not step 3. Draw after you have a copy you are willing to show if you must annotate; still wipe the file that will leave the device. Pencil strokes do not delete APP1.

iPad-only scenarios

A classroom iPad photographing a worksheet to send home. GPS can pin the school or the teacher’s apartment if they used a personal iPad at the kitchen table. Wipe the JPEG before it hits a parent thread.

Sidecar / Universal Control stills that originated on a Mac or iPhone. The iPad is only the viewer. Tags are from the capturing device. Wipe the file you will attach from the iPad, not ‘the picture on screen.’

A Keynote deck with dragged-in camera photos. Keynote can keep the image resource. Wipe the JPEG before you drop it into the deck, or export the slide as a PNG and wipe that PNG if the deck is what you send — knowing the Keynote file may still hold the original resource. Prefer wiping before placing.

AirDrop from iPhone, then ‘I’ll clean it on the iPad.’ Good, if you actually run this tab and send the download. AirDrop itself did not clean it. The iPhone still has the master.

Mistakes

Using Markup, then sharing from Photos. Markup is pixels. GPS can remain. Share the wiped download.

HEIC in the picker, tool refuses, you send the HEIC anyway. Convert, then wipe the JPEG.

Split View looking at a wiped PNG and attaching the Photos item with the same thumbnail. Attach from Files by name.

Assuming iPadOS strips tags because it is ‘not a phone.’ Camera is Camera. AirDrop is a copy.

Phone-shaped siblings: remove metadata from an iPhone screenshot and how to remove EXIF data from a photo on Android. This page is the tablet.

Related guides

See also:

• Remove metadata from an iPhone screenshot
• Remove EXIF from a photo on Android