Does Resizing a Photo Remove EXIF Data? It Depends
Published 23 September 2026 · by Tekiba
Making a photo smaller does not, by itself, touch the information stored alongside it. What decides is the tool you resized with, and two commands in the same program can answer differently: some write a new file from the pixels and nothing else, leaving the date, the camera and any GPS behind, and others copy the old block across on purpose. SignetDrop is in the first group: the output carries no EXIF unless you pay for the option that puts it back, and then only for JPEG. Free is ten photos at a time, up to 2048px.
What EXIF is, and what is in it
EXIF is a real standard with a number: CIPA DC-008-Translation-2026 — "Exchangeable image file format for digital still cameras: Exif Version 3.1", published by CIPA, the Camera & Imaging Products Association. Your camera writes a block of tagged fields into the file next to the picture, and everything downstream may read it, ignore it, or throw it away.
How-To Geek's explanation of the orientation tag, published in 2016, lists what that block holds: the camera "adds this information to the Exif data that all photos have (which includes the model of camera you took it with, the orientation, and possibly even the GPS location where the photo was taken)". Date and time are in there too.
Why one tool drops it and the next keeps it
The answer is in how the new file gets made. A tool that decodes the picture, draws it at the new size and encodes that has no history: there was never a moment when the old tags were in hand. A tool that treats the resize as an edit copies the block across. Neither is a bug.
The same split shows up inside one program. A reader asked on Adobe's own forum, in 2018, how to keep EXIF when exporting. Of the export path they were told "you can do a resize but you cannot see the EXIF data there either"; the way out was a different command — "any of the image formats that you save into that has EXIF data will maintain your EXIF data". Same picture, same application, two answers.
Orientation bites hardest, because it is the one tag that changes what you see. How-To Geek puts it plainly: "The image data is saved in its original, unrotated form, but the Exif tag allows applications to correct it." And: "Unfortunately, not every piece of software obeys this Exif tag." Strip the tag from a file whose pixels were never rotated and the photo falls on its side; keep it on a file whose pixels have been rotated and it turns twice.
When losing it is the outcome you want
For anything you are about to publish, it usually is. A listing photo carries the block to whoever downloads it, and the field people forget is location. If that is the worry, remove location data from photos before selling online goes through what a phone writes and what comes off here. Resizing for a feed is similar: sizing to 2048px and bulk resizing and renaming both produce files with nothing attached.
That is the default here: output is drawn onto a canvas and re-encoded, so there is no step at which the old tags could survive.
When you want it kept
Sorting by capture date, keeping the lens in the file, handing an archive to somebody else: none of these involve the internet. The paid version carries it across, with one condition stated up front: JPEG in, JPEG out. Choose PNG or WebP and it does not come across; feed in a HEIC and there is nothing to take, and the run counts the photos the format ruled out.
The pixels have already been rotated by the time they are written, so an ordinary Orientation tag is reset to "upright" rather than copied, for the reason above.
Location is dropped unless you ask for it. Keeping the date and the camera need not mean keeping where you stood: with Strip GPS location ticked, as it is to start with, the GPS block is removed and the rest comes across.
Checking a file yourself
You do not have to take anybody's word for this, including ours. On Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties and open the Details tab; on a Mac, open it in Preview and show the inspector. Run one photo through whatever tool you are judging and compare the date and camera rows with the original.
What this does not do
It does not reach backwards: a file you saved with another program is whatever that program left it as, and we can only tell you what this tool does, not what yours did. Nor is the paid carry-over a promise about every field: an Orientation tag written in an unusual form is passed along as it stands rather than reset, so a photo can arrive with a tag that disagrees with its own pixels. What the run counts is every photo that came out without the block, whether the format ruled it out or the block could not be read, except a JPEG that never had one. And a picture can still show where it was taken whatever the tags say.
Where the free version stops
Free does ten photos at a time, up to 2048px on the longest edge: resize, convert, rename, watermark and a ZIP. Keeping EXIF is paid, $29 once rather than a subscription — the split is on the pricing panel. Clearing it is free — it is what happens anyway.
Open SignetDrop and run one photo through. Whatever you decide about metadata, the picture never leaves your machine.
Questions
Does compressing a photo remove metadata?
Not on its own. Compression is about how the pixels are stored and the tags sit beside them, so what matters is again the tool: a "save for web" command usually writes a lean file with no extras, while a plain re-save usually keeps what was there. The two often sit in the same menu, which is why one program gives two answers.
Will resizing keep the date a photo was taken?
Only if the tool copies the block over. Here it does not, unless you have the paid option and the batch is JPEG to JPEG. If it is date order you care about rather than file contents, renaming is often the better answer: a name sorts everywhere and a tag does not.
Can I do this for free?
Clearing EXIF, yes — it is the default and costs nothing: ten at a time on the free version, up to 2048px, resized, renamed, converted and zipped, with nothing uploaded. Keeping it is the paid side. If what you need is a marked batch rather than a clean one, watermarking without uploading covers that, and what eBay and Etsy allow covers whether you should.
Open the tool, or read about squaring a batch without cropping or fitting squares to a 3:4 frame, or what this page loads and counts.