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Siftool — Remove EXIF, GPS & AI (C2PA) Metadata from Photos

Free, offline Windows app that strips location, personal data and AI provenance marks from your photos — without losing quality.
The original is never modified · nothing is re-encoded · a copy is marked Verified only after it is re-checked

⬇ Download the installer (22 MB)  ·  ⬇ Download the portable ZIP (27 MB)  ·  All releases

Note

The interface is currently in Brazilian Portuguese. An English interface is on the roadmap. The program is simple to use without reading the labels: drop photos, click the big button.

Why remove metadata from photos?

Every photo carries hidden data besides the picture itself — the EXIF, XMP and IPTC metadata. A photo shared as a file can reveal:

• where it was taken: GPS coordinates, often precise to a few meters;
• when: the exact date and time;
• who took it and with what: your name, the phone or camera model, its serial number;
• the software that edited it;
• for AI images, a C2PA / Content Credentials manifest — the provenance record that ChatGPT (OpenAI), Adobe Firefly and other tools embed to say the image was AI-generated — plus the generation prompts some tools write into PNG files.

Siftool shows exactly what each photo hides, in plain language, and writes a clean copy next to the original.

Features

• Lossless metadata removal — Siftool never decodes or re-compresses the image. It copies the image bytes exactly as they are and removes only the metadata blocks, so pixels come out identical and there is no JPEG quality loss.
• Removes GPS location, EXIF, XMP, IPTC, comments and hidden thumbnails in one click, for single photos or whole folders.
• Removes AI provenance: C2PA / Content Credentials manifests (such as ChatGPT's) and AI generation parameters stored in PNG text chunks.
• A "Verified" seal you can trust: after writing the copy, Siftool re-reads it from scratch and checks that nothing the chosen mode forbids is left. If anything remains, the copy is not saved and the reason is shown.
• Your original is never touched — the clean copy is saved as photo_clean.jpg; nothing is overwritten.
• 100% offline and private — no internet, no telemetry, no account. Your photos never leave your computer.
• Three cleaning modes: Privacy, Photographer (keeps camera and lens settings) and Maximum.
• Windows integration: Clean with Siftool in the right-click menu, drag and drop, light and dark themes, installer with no admin rights, or a portable version.
• Command-line interface for scripts and automation, with JSON output.
• Free and open source (GPLv3).

Download and install

Requires Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit). No Python or other software needed.

Installer · Siftool-2.0.0-beta.1-setup.exe	Installs for your user only, no administrator password. Adds a Start menu shortcut and, optionally, Limpar com Siftool (Clean with Siftool) to the right-click menu of photos and folders. Uninstall from Settings → Apps.
Portable · Siftool-2.0.0-beta.1-portable.zip	Nothing is installed. Extract the Siftool folder to a short path (such as C:\Siftool or a USB drive) and open Siftool.exe. Settings stay inside the folder.

Note

"Windows protected your PC": Siftool is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns on first launch. Click More info → Run anyway. With Windows 11 Smart App Control turned on, unsigned programs may be blocked without that option.

Installation details

• The installer writes to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Siftool; settings live in %APPDATA%\Siftool and are kept on uninstall.
• On Windows 11, Limpar com Siftool is under Show more options. Windows hides it when more than 15 files are selected — for many photos, use the folder entry or drag them into the window.
• The portable folder's full path must be short: with about 200 characters or more (deep OneDrive folders), the program does not start.
• Opening several photos from the right-click menu sends them all to the same window.
• SHA-256 checksums are on the release page.

How to use

1. Drop photos or folders into the window (or use Adicionar fotos / Adicionar pasta, or the Windows right-click menu).
2. See what each photo hides. Click a photo to see what will be removed and what will be kept in the chosen mode.
3. Pick a mode and click Limpar (Clean). Each photo gets the Verificado (Verified) seal and the clean copy appears next to the original; Abrir pasta opens the folder.

Cleaning modes

Mode	Removes	Keeps
Privacy (default)	Location, personal data, dates, device, camera settings, software, text and comments, hidden thumbnails, AI marks and any unknown data	Only what the photo needs to display correctly: orientation and color profile
Photographer	Same as Privacy, except device and camera settings	Orientation, color, camera, lens, ISO, aperture and shutter speed
Maximum	Everything, including orientation and color profile	Nothing (the photo may appear rotated or with slightly different colors)

Supported formats

Format	Status
JPEG / JPG	✅ Supported
PNG (including animated PNG)	✅ Supported — including C2PA manifests and AI prompts
WEBP (lossy, lossless and animated)	✅ Supported, without re-encoding
HEIC (iPhone photos), MP4 and MOV videos	⏳ Shown as "not supported yet" — coming in a future release

Dark theme

Siftool follows the Windows theme (light or dark), or the one you choose in Settings.

How the "Verified" seal works

• Byte-level parsing. Siftool understands each format's structure (JPEG segments, PNG chunks, WEBP RIFF chunks) and classifies every block as image data or metadata. Image data is copied byte for byte; metadata is removed or rewritten from scratch with only the allowed fields.
• Fail-closed verification. The copy is re-read as an unknown file, scanned for metadata signatures (EXIF, XMP, C2PA, coordinates) and compared with the original to prove the image itself did not change. Any doubt becomes "not cleaned", never "Verified".
• Validated structures. Blocks treated as image data must have the size, order and count the format requires, which closes the tricks used to hide data inside valid-looking structures.
• Tested. 909 automated tests, including randomly corrupted files, files crafted to fool the verification, and a real ChatGPT image with a C2PA manifest.

Known limit: data hidden inside the pixels themselves (steganography or invisible watermarks such as SynthID) is not detected. Siftool removes metadata; it does not alter the image.

Command line

The same engine runs in the terminal for scripts and automation (Python 3.11+):

pip install git+https://github.com/FFloriani/siftool.git

siftool scan photo.jpg                        # show what the photo contains, by category
siftool clean photos/ --mode photographer     # clean a whole folder (modes: privacy, photographer, maximum)
siftool clean photo.jpg --out cleaned/        # write the copies to another folder
siftool verify photo_clean.jpg --original photo.jpg

Add --json to any command for machine-readable output (schema 2). Exit code is 0 when everything is verified, 1 with warnings and 2 on failure.

FAQ

How do I remove the GPS location from a photo on Windows?

Open Siftool, drop the photo into the window and click Limpar (Clean) in Privacidade (Privacy) mode. The clean copy (photo_clean.jpg) has no GPS coordinates, date, device or name. You can also right-click the photo in File Explorer and choose Limpar com Siftool (Clean with Siftool).

How do I remove the AI / C2PA metadata from a ChatGPT image?

Images generated by ChatGPT carry a C2PA (Content Credentials) manifest that identifies them as AI-generated. Siftool detects it — the row shows a Marca de IA (AI mark) tag — and removes it in any mode, without re-encoding the image.

Does removing metadata reduce image quality?

No. Siftool does not decode or re-compress the image: the image bytes are copied unchanged, so a JPEG keeps exactly the same quality. Re-saving a photo in an image editor, by contrast, re-compresses it every time.

Does it change or delete my original photo?

Never. Siftool writes a new file next to the original (_clean suffix) and never overwrites anything.

Is it safe? Does it upload my photos?

Siftool works fully offline: no internet connection, no telemetry, no account. The source code is public under the GPLv3.

Does it remove invisible AI watermarks (like SynthID)?

No. Invisible watermarks live in the pixels, not in the metadata. Siftool removes metadata only and never alters the image.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/FFloriani/siftool.git
cd siftool
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -e ".[gui,test]"
.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest           # 909 tests, ~30 s
.venv\Scripts\siftool-gui.exe                # launch the app

• src/siftool/ — the engine: Python standard library only, no dependencies.
• src/siftool_gui/ — the desktop app, built with PySide6 and QFluentWidgets.
• packaging/ — installer and portable build. Install Inno Setup 6, run pip install -e ".[gui,build]", then .venv\Scripts\python.exe packaging\build.py. Output goes to dist\.
• docs/superpowers/ — design documents and implementation plans.

Warning

Do not run python -m siftool_gui from the repository root: the legacy siftool.py there shadows the new package.

The legacy program (Tkinter)

Siftool 1.x was a single file, siftool.py, with a Tkinter interface. It stays in the repository for now because it still has features the new program lacks (video cleaning with ffmpeg, a metadata editor), and it will be retired once HEIC and video reach the new program. Build it with build.bat (output in dist\legacy\siftool).

Roadmap

• HEIC (iPhone) photos and MP4 / MOV videos
• Code signing (no Windows warning on first launch)
• English interface

Support

If Siftool helped you, consider supporting its development:

License

Siftool is free software under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPLv3) — see LICENSE. The interface uses QFluentWidgets (Community edition), which is GPLv3, so the whole program is too. Licenses of the other bundled components (Qt for Python, PyInstaller and others) are in packaging/THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

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🇧🇷 Em português

O Siftool é um programa gratuito para Windows que remove metadados de fotos: tira a localização (GPS), os dados pessoais, a data, o modelo do celular e as marcas de IA (C2PA) do ChatGPT, sem recomprimir a imagem e sem alterar o original. Funciona offline e só marca a cópia como Verificado depois de conferir. Leia a documentação completa em português →