Apple Intelligence · iOS 27

Remove Metadata from Apple Image Playground and Clean Up Photos

Apple labels AI output in metadata. An independent forensic analysis found that Image Playground names itself in EXIF, and that photos edited with Clean Up get the IPTC credit “Apple Photos Clean Up” and the digital source type compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia, while camera model and GPS are dropped. Apple has also said a SynthID watermark is coming to Apple Intelligence images and most edits in a software update later this year.

Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. Reviewed September 25, 2026

Check an Apple Intelligence image

Pick the file from the Files app to see Apple's labels. The Photos picker may convert it first.

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JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC · Up to 20 images · Nothing is uploaded

EXIFGPSXMPIPTCC2PAPNG text

What Apple adds

Layer	Present	Details	BlankAI
C2PA Content Credentials	Not documented	Apple has not documented C2PA for Image Playground or Clean Up.	Removed
EXIF / XMP / IPTC label	Yes	Image Playground names itself in EXIF. Clean Up adds the credit “Apple Photos Clean Up” and compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia (independent analysis).	Removed
Invisible watermark	Announced	Apple says generated images and most edited images will carry SynthID after a software update later in 2026.	Not removed
Visible watermark	No	No visible mark. Photos shows “Modified with Clean Up” in the info panel.	Nothing to remove

Clean Up removes your location but adds an AI label

The forensic analysis found an unusual trade: a photo edited with Clean Up loses its camera model and GPS but gains an AI label. If you share the edited photo, the location is already gone, and the label says an AI edit was made.

SynthID on Apple devices

At WWDC in June 2026 Apple introduced a new Image Playground with a photorealistic model running on Private Cloud Compute, and said generated images and Apple Intelligence edits will include a hidden SynthID watermark. Its September 2026 announcement says the watermark arrives in a software update later this year. Once it ships, cleaning metadata will not stop Google's SynthID checks from recognizing these images.

What BlankAI removes, and what it does not

The same rules apply to every file, whatever made it. BlankAI cleans the metadata that travels with a file. It cannot reach anything that is part of the image itself.

Layer	Where it lives	What it holds	BlankAI
EXIF and GPS	File metadata	Camera or phone model, serial numbers, capture time and location coordinates.	Removed
XMP and IPTC	File metadata	Creator tool, edit history, captions, credits and the IPTC Digital Source Type AI label.	Removed
C2PA Content Credentials	Signed manifest inside the file	Who or what created the file and how it was edited, signed by the issuing app.	Removed
PNG text chunks	File metadata	Stable Diffusion prompts, seeds and model names, ComfyUI workflows.	Removed
Invisible watermarks	The pixels	SynthID (Google and OpenAI images), Meta's Content Seal, TikTok and ByteDance watermarks.	Not removed
Visible watermarks	The pixels	Logos, sparkle icons and corner badges drawn onto the image.	Not removed
AI classifiers	The platform	Models that judge an image by how it looks. File metadata plays no part.	Not affected

Questions

Does Clean Up leave a mark on my photo?

It leaves metadata: an IPTC credit and an AI digital source type, according to independent analysis. There is no visible mark.