scrub-exif

Losslessly strip Exif/GPS and all other metadata from JPEG and PNG files, keeping only the color profile.

• Lossless — pixel data is never re-encoded. Only metadata segments/chunks are removed; every remaining byte (including color profiles) is preserved.
• Zero dependencies — nothing is installed alongside it.
• No native binaries — pure TypeScript/JavaScript. No exiftool, no sharp, no platform builds. Runs anywhere Node does (and in Bun/Deno).

Why

Photos carry hidden metadata — most importantly GPS coordinates that can reveal your home address. Common tools have trade-offs:

| Tool | Strips metadata | Lossless | No native binary | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | exiftool | ✅ everything | ✅ | ❌ (Perl binary) | | sharp | ✅ on re-encode | ❌ recompresses | ❌ (native) | | scrub-exif | ✅ all but ICC profile | ✅ | ✅ |

scrub-exif removes every metadata block — Exif/GPS, XMP, IPTC, vendor and comment segments — while keeping the ICC color profile and leaving the compressed image data byte-for-byte intact.

Install

npm install scrub-exif
# or run without installing:
npx scrub-exif <files|dirs...>

CLI

scrub-exif photo.jpg                # strip a single file in place
scrub-exif ./images                 # recurse a directory (.jpg/.jpeg/.png)
scrub-exif ./images --dry-run       # show what would be removed, write nothing
scrub-exif . --check                # exit 1 if any file still has metadata
scrub-exif ./images --quiet         # only print changed files + summary

--check makes a great CI gate or pre-commit hook: it never writes and fails when metadata is still present.

[strip] images/beach.jpg removed=[APP1, APP13] (-29953 bytes)
[clean] images/logo.png
[skip ] images/notes.txt

1/3 files stripped (-29953 bytes).

Programmatic API

import { readFile, writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";
import { stripExif } from "scrub-exif";

const input = new Uint8Array(await readFile("photo.jpg"));
const result = stripExif(input);

result.format; // "jpeg" | "png" | "unknown"
result.removed; // e.g. ["APP1", "APP13"]
result.changed; // true if any metadata was removed

if (result.changed) {
  await writeFile("photo.jpg", result.data);
}

Lower-level, format-specific functions are also exported:

import { stripJpeg, stripPng, isJpeg, isPng, detectFormat } from "scrub-exif";

What gets removed

| Format | Removed | Kept | | --- | --- | --- | | JPEG | APP1 (Exif/GPS, XMP), APP13 (IPTC/Photoshop), every other APPn vendor segment, COM (comments) | APP0 (JFIF), APP2 (ICC profile), APP14 (Adobe), and all image data | | PNG | eXIf, tEXt, zTXt, iTXt (XMP), tIME | IHDR, PLTE, iCCP, sRGB, gAMA, cHRM, pHYs, IDAT, IEND, … |

Unknown formats are returned unchanged.

License

MIT © kkhys