How can I remove only the EXIF orientation tag while keeping other metadata?

Asked 6/26/2018

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I want to clear the EXIF Orientation field from a photo without stripping the rest of the metadata such as GPS data. Windows file properties only lets me remove broader metadata, not just this one tag. Is there a way to remove or reset only the orientation tag while leaving other EXIF data intact?

metadata orientation windows exif exiftool

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

8y ago

2 Answers

You can use exiftool to remove the orientation tag:

exiftool -Orientation= /target/dir/or/File

Replace /target/dir/or/File with the files and/or directories you want to process. If run under Unix/Mac, use single quotes to avoid bash interpretation.

To suppress the creation of backup files, add -overwrite_original.
To recurse into subdirectories, add -r.

Originally by user37960. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user37960

8y ago

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes. A common way is to edit just that one EXIF field with ExifTool instead of stripping all metadata.

Use: exiftool -Orientation= yourfile.jpg

If that doesn’t fully clear it in your workflow, a reported workaround is: exiftool -n -Orientation=0 yourfile.jpg

ExifTool normally creates a backup copy; add -overwrite_original if you don’t want that.

Another simple Windows-based option is rotating the photo in File Explorer. One user reported that doing this removed the Orientation attribute while leaving the rest of the EXIF metadata intact.

So yes—you can target only the orientation tag and keep the rest of the EXIF data.

How can I remove only the EXIF orientation tag while keeping other metadata?

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