I vibe coded an Image Metadata Scrubber (EXIF/XMP/IPTC) + Live Demo

[Ethan]

I just vibe coded a tiny webapp tool for checking and cleaning image metadata:

Live preview: https://img-metadata.vercel.app/

Codebase: GitHub - letitcodedev/image-metadata-studio: A local-only web app (TanStack Start + TypeScript) to inspect and scrub image metadata (EXIF/XMP/IPTC), with optional JPEG export that preserves pixel data

It reads EXIF / XMP / IPTC straight from an uploaded image in the browser (no backend upload), shows everything in clear key/value tables, and for JPEG images it can remove or edit privacy fields and let you download a new image with the same pixel data.

---

Why scrubbing metadata matters

When you share photos online, you might accidentally leak:

• GPS coordinates (exact location)
• Time + timezone (your timeline / travel patterns)
• Stable IDs (e.g. ImageUniqueID) that can link photos together

---

Quick mental model: image structure

An image file isn’t just pixels:

Image file
├── Pixel data (visual content)
└── Metadata
    ├── EXIF   ← camera, time, GPS (most privacy info)
    ├── XMP    ← author, edits, copyright
    ├── IPTC   ← captions, creator, location text
    └── Other technical info (color profile, orientation)