Do Instagram, WhatsApp, and iMessage strip photo metadata automatically?

Partially. Instagram strips most EXIF on upload but keeps some IPTC fields. WhatsApp strips most metadata on compressed sends but not on 'Document' sends. iMessage preserves the original photo with full metadata when sending to other iPhones. AirDrop preserves everything. If you want guaranteed metadata removal before any send, strip the photo client-side first.

Yes — Skrim is free for up to 5 strips per day, one photo at a time, in Strip Mode. Ghost Mode is a one-time $9.99 purchase that unlocks unlimited strips, batch up to 50 photos at a time, Scramble Mode, Inject Mode, the full Share Extension, and iMessage integration. Ghost Mode Family is $19.99 once for up to 6 people via Apple Family Sharing. No subscription.

Does Skrim work on Live Photos, HEIC files, and videos?

Yes. Skrim handles HEIC and JPEG (with optional HEIC→JPG conversion for cross-platform compatibility), Live Photos (both the still and the motion file are stripped and re-paired with a fresh UUID), and short videos. Resolution and image quality are preserved by default; an optional 'Resize for social' setting downsamples to 1080px on the long edge.

Skrim — Post your face. Hide your address.

v1.4 — three new
ways to lie.

Metadata stripping was step one. v1.4 disguises the photo itself. Build a Live Photo from any video. Hide a real clip inside a Live Photo. Cover any photo — Live or still — with a decoy from your library, revertible any time. All on-device.

Skrim Live Photo Builder — pick a video, scrub to the still frame, package as a paired Live Photo

Live Builder

Live Photo from any video

Pick a video. Scrub to the still you want. We package it as a paired Live Photo — location, device, date all under your control. Works on AI clips, screen recordings, drone footage, anything iOS can play.

Skrim Video-to-Live disguise — replace the still of a Live Photo with a chosen decoy image

Video → Live

Hide a video inside a Live Photo

Replace the still frame of a Live Photo with a decoy from your library. Camera roll shows the disguise. Long-press reveals the motion. We walk you through turning "Live Off" in Photos so a swipe-through can't auto-play it.

Pro tip Want to keep the original clip? In Photos, open the Live Photo and Share → Save as Video before you turn Live off. The real recording lives on as a regular video in your library.

Photo Disguise

Swap the pixels. Keep the original.

Cover any photo — Live or still — with a decoy from your library. Your camera roll shows the disguise. Skrim keeps the original inside the app and lets you revert any disguised photo back, in one tap, any time.

What the toggle leaves — and what the platform keeps

Apple's "remove location" only scrubs your GPS. The other twenty-four tags stay attached. Camera serial. Lens model. Timestamp to the second. Software build. Altitude. Speed. And the platform? It still has your original.

The question every creator asks

"Doesn't Instagram already strip my EXIF?"

Platforms strip what your followers see — not what they keep, and not where you go next.

Skrim is the protection for going off-road.

The platform still holds your original with full metadata. A breach, a subpoena, or a curious employee doesn't see the stripped version — they see yours.
The second you leave the paved road — DMs, AirDrop, email, Discord "Document" sends, Telegram, selling direct, sending to a collaborator, your own site — nothing strips for you.
Pro rule: never outsource your safety to a platform. Strip client-side, before you send.

001 · Location

GPS Coordinates

39.952584°N
75.165222°W

Decimal degreesExposed

002 · Device

Camera Model

iPhone 15 Pro Max
"iPhone15,3"

Identifies your hardwareExposed

It doesn't matter what you erase from the caption. The photo bytes already told them.

003 · Optics

Lens Model

iPhone 15 Pro Max back triple camera 6.765mm f/1.78

Down to the millimeterExposed

004 · Identity

Body Serial

F2LXXXR9PNJF

Unique to your phoneExposed

005 · Timing

Timestamp

2024:12:25
02:07:33
UTC -05:00

Original capture momentExposed

006 · OS

Software

iOS 18.2 · build 22C150

Reveals OS stateExposed

007 · Movement

Altitude + Speed

12.4m above sea level
0.0 km/h (still)

Were you running?Exposed

008 · Settings

ISO / Aperture

ISO 1600 · f/1.78
1/30s · WB Auto

Camera stateExposed

009 · Image

Resolution + Color Space

4032 × 3024 · sRGB · DPI 72 · Orientation 6

Pixel signatureExposed

010 · And more

+15 hidden tags

All stripped
in one tap.

Skrim removes everythingClean

Inside the
Cloak tab.

The Cloak tab is the photo-tools hub. Four modes, one toggle: Strip removes the hidden tags. Scramble replaces them with believable fakes. Inject adds tags to a clean photo. Disguise swaps the pixels — Live or still — with a decoy, revertible any time.

Strip

Remove every tag

The original mode. Twenty-five hidden fields gone in one tap. Photo bytes identical, fingerprint gone. Free, 5 a day.

Scramble

Poison the well

Photo had GPS, lens, serial. Now it has someone else's — different city, different device, different date. Same pixels.

Inject

Add a backstory

Photo had no metadata. Now it reads as a regular phone shot from anywhere on earth. An empty EXIF block is its own tell — Inject fixes that.

Disguise

Swap the pixels

Cover any photo — Live or still — with a decoy from your library. Camera roll shows the disguise. Original stays revertible, in-app, any time.

Three entry points

Cloak is wherever you share photos.

Main app

Open Skrim, tap Cloak, pick photos. The full toolbox lives here.

Share sheet

From Photos, Files, Mail — anywhere iOS shows Share, Skrim is one tap deep.

iMessage

Cloak ships as a Messages app. Two taps, photo goes clean, recipient never sees the difference.

Disguise walkthrough

Four taps to disguise.
one tap to revert.

Photo Disguise doesn't make a copy. It overwrites the photo's pixels in place, in your library, using Apple's content-editing system — the same one Photos.app uses for its own edits. Which means the original is preserved by iOS and restorable at any time.

01

Cloak tab

Pick what to hide

Open Cloak. Switch the mode toggle to Disguise. Pick the source photos you want to cover — one at a time or a batch of up to 50.
02

Decoy

Pick the decoy

Tap the decoy chip. Pick any photo from your library — a landscape, a stock shot, anything. Those are the pixels your camera roll will show instead.
03

Disguise

Apply the swap

Tap Disguise N Photos. Skrim routes each source through Apple's content-editing API. Camera roll updates to show the decoy. The original is preserved by iOS, off-screen.
04

Revert anytime

Revert when you want

Open Skrim → Cloak → "Revert previously disguised" (or Set → Disguised photos). Or use Photos.app's three-dot menu → "Revert." Apple's system restores the unmodified original.

Why we trust the revert

Apple keeps
the original.

When an app edits a photo through Apple's content-editing API, iOS stores the unmodified original alongside the edit. Photos.app's own crop / filter / markup tools work this way. Disguise piggybacks on it: we never have to back up your original ourselves, and Apple's "Revert to Original" works on every disguised photo whether you tap it inside Skrim or inside Photos.

On-device

Disguise + revert happen locally. No upload, no server, no account, no logging.
Native revert

Restore from inside Skrim (Cloak → Revert list) or from Photos.app's three-dot menu. Either works on every disguised photo.
Heads-up

Revert restores the camera-captured original — back through any later disguises in a single shot. There's no per-step undo stack; revert is "back to true."

Inside the app

Three tabs.
no menus, no maze.

Cloak

Photo tools

Strip — remove hidden tags
Scramble — fake the tags
Inject — add tags to a clean photo
Disguise — swap the pixels
Revert any disguised photo

Build

Live Photos from video

Standard mode — 3-second Live Photo from any video
Disguise mode — full-length clip hidden behind a decoy still, no duration limit
Pick location, device and date
Works on AI clips, screen recordings, drone footage

Set

Settings + history

Default disguise location + device
Disguised photos — review and revert
Lifetime stats
Ghost Mode upgrade + redeem code

Same photo.
two stories.

Left: what your phone sends. Right: what Skrim sends. Same pixels, no fingerprint.

Before

Original photo with hidden metadata exposed

GPS · 39.95°N 75.16°W iPhone 15 Pro Max Lens · 6.765mm f/1.78 Serial · F2LXXXR9 02:07:33 · iOS 18.2 + 19 more tags

After

The photo bytes are identical. The hidden tags are gone. Recipient sees your image, never your fingerprint.

Ghost Mode
unlocks all of it.

One purchase. Every feature, forever. No subscription. No upsell screens. No renewals.

Live Photo Builder

Turn any video into a paired Live Photo with metadata you control.

Video → Live disguise

Hide a video clip inside a Live Photo. Decoy still on top.

Photo Disguise

Swap any photo's pixels for a decoy. Revert in-app any time.

Unlimited strips

No daily limit. Process as many photos as you want.

Batch up to 50

Select an entire album. One tap. Done.

Scramble Mode

Replace metadata with believable fakes. Poison the well.

Share extension

Strip from any app via the iOS share sheet.

iMessage built-in

Strip + send without leaving the conversation.

Resize for social

Auto-resize to 1080px for IG, X & Reddit.

Compression control

Shrink file size with no visible loss.

HEIC → JPG

iPhone photos open everywhere — Android, Windows, web.

Pricing — Pay once

One time.
forever.

No subscription. No monthly fee. No "lite" version. Buy once, own it on every iPhone you'll ever have. Family Sharing supported.

"All sales final. We're that confident."

On-device only No servers No tracking No account required

Skrim Free

5 strips per day · single photo · strip mode

$0always

Ghost Mode

Unlimited · batch 50 · Scramble · share extension · all features

$9.99once

Ghost Mode Family

Everything in Ghost Mode · Family Sharing for up to 6 people

$19.99once

Frequently asked

The questions
everyone asks first.

What is the new Live Photo Builder?+

The Live Photo Builder turns any video into a paired Live Photo. Pick a clip from your camera roll, scrub to the moment you want as the still frame, and Skrim packages it as a Live Photo with the location, device and date you choose. Works on AI-generated clips, screen recordings, drone footage — anything iOS can play. Free tier includes 5 lifetime builds; Ghost Mode unlocks unlimited.

How does the photo disguise tool work? Can I revert it?+

Photo Disguise replaces the visible pixels of any photo — Live or still — with a decoy you choose from your library. Your camera roll shows the disguise, but Skrim keeps the original safely inside the app. You can revert any disguised photo back to its original in one tap, any time. Everything happens on-device.

How is video-to-Live disguise different from Scramble Mode?+

Scramble replaces a photo's hidden metadata with believable fakes. Video-to-Live disguise goes further — it hides an actual video clip inside a Live Photo that visually looks like a different still. The decoy still shows in your camera roll; long-press reveals the motion. After applying the disguise Skrim walks you through turning "Live Off" for that image in the Photos app so a swipe-through can't auto-play the hidden clip.

How do I keep the original clip after disguising a Live Photo?+

Before turning Live off in Photos, open the disguised Live Photo and tap Share → Save as Video. The original recording is preserved as a regular video in your library, so even if you toggle Live off (or later delete the Live Photo) the real clip lives on.

What is EXIF data on an iPhone photo?+

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a block of hidden metadata stored inside every photo. On iPhone it typically includes GPS coordinates accurate to the meter, a camera serial number unique to your device, lens model, timestamp accurate to the second, iOS build, aperture, ISO, altitude, and the speed you were moving when the shot was taken. Recipients of your photo can read all of it. Full breakdown →

Does iPhone's "Remove Location" toggle strip all metadata?+

No. Apple's toggle (iOS 15+) only removes GPS coordinates. The other 24+ tags — camera serial, lens model, timestamp, iOS build, aperture, ISO, altitude, speed — stay attached. Skrim removes all of them. What Apple doesn't strip →

How do I remove EXIF data from an iPhone photo?+

Install Skrim. Open the app, tap the + button, pick the photo, tap Strip. The cleaned photo is saved to Photos with every tag removed. Or use the iOS Share Sheet from any app — Photos, Messages, Mail, Files: tap Share, tap Skrim, photo goes through clean. Everything happens on your device.

Doesn't Instagram already strip my EXIF?+

Platforms strip what your followers see — not what the platform keeps, and not where photos go next. Instagram still holds your original with full metadata on its servers; a breach, a subpoena, or a curious employee sees the unstripped version. And the moment a photo leaves the app — a DM, AirDrop, Discord "Document" send, Telegram, email, your own site, or a direct sale — nothing strips it for you. Pro rule: never outsource your safety to a platform. Strip client-side, before you send. Platform-by-platform breakdown →

Is Skrim free?+

Yes — free for up to 5 strips per day in Strip Mode. Ghost Mode is a one-time $9.99 purchase that unlocks unlimited strips, batch up to 50, Scramble Mode, Inject Mode, the full Share Extension, and iMessage integration. Ghost Mode Family is $19.99 once for up to 6 people via Apple Family Sharing. No subscription.

Does Skrim upload my photos to a server?+

No. Every photo is processed locally on your iPhone. There are no servers, no accounts, no logging, no tracking. The cleaned photo never leaves your device until you send it.

What is Scramble Mode?+

Scramble replaces your photo's metadata with believable fakes — different camera, different lens, different timestamp. The photo still has tags, but none of them are yours. Useful when an empty metadata block would itself look suspicious, or when you want to poison the well. Scramble vs Strip →

Does Skrim work on Live Photos, HEIC, and videos?+

Yes. Skrim handles HEIC and JPEG (with optional HEIC→JPG conversion), Live Photos (both halves are stripped and re-paired with a fresh UUID), and short videos. An optional "Resize for social" setting downsamples to 1080px on the long edge.

Can hackers really track me from a photo I posted online?+

If the photo's EXIF still has GPS, yes — any free metadata viewer extracts the coordinates in one click. Even without GPS, the camera serial and lens model form a fingerprint that links every photo you've ever posted back to one device. How attackers use EXIF →

What iOS version do I need?+

iOS 17 or later. iPhone only — no iPad or Mac version at launch.

Post your face.
Hide your address.