Remove audio metadata without touching the sound
Audio files collect information as they travel: the name of the person who ripped a CD, the store account that bought a song, the program and version that encoded it, the date and sometimes the place a recording was made. This free tool will remove audio metadata from MP3, M4A, FLAC, OGG, Opus and WAV files so you can share just the sound.
First it lists everything it found in each file and flags locations and personal data. Then it rebuilds the files without their tag blocks and checks the result twice — with its own parser and with the independent music-metadata library — while proving with a hash that not a single audio byte changed. Nothing is uploaded: the whole job runs in your browser.
How to use the Remove Audio Metadata
- Drop one or more audio files onto the box.
- Look through the list for each file. Yellow boxes point out locations and personal or purchase data; “Show the items found” lists every tag.
- If you want to keep some information, tick it under “Keep these” — for example song info and cover art when you share music with friends.
- Press “Remove metadata”. Each file gets a green “Verified clean” line once it has been re-read.
- Download each file, or all of them at once as a ZIP.
Remove Audio Metadata features
Every tag block removed
ID3v2, ID3v1, APEv2 and Lyrics3 in MP3; iTunes atoms, QuickTime user data and XMP in M4A; Vorbis comments, pictures and application blocks in FLAC; Ogg comment headers; RIFF INFO, id3, bext and iXML chunks in WAV.
Lossless
The audio frames, samples or pages are copied byte for byte. Ogg pages are renumbered with fresh checksums and MP4 chunk offsets are recalculated so files play exactly as before.
Keep what you choose
Optionally keep song info, track numbers, cover art, lyrics, ReplayGain/gapless data or chapters — comments, personal data and software names always go.
Privacy warnings
Locations from phone recorders, Apple ID e-mail addresses and owner names in purchased songs, and recorder names from field recorders are highlighted before you clean.
Double-checked
Every result is parsed again and compared with a SHA-256 hash of the original audio; music-metadata (MIT licence) confirms that no tags remain.
Batch and ZIP
Clean a whole folder in one go and download everything as a single ZIP file.
What audio metadata can give away
| Where it comes from | What it can contain | Stored in |
|---|---|---|
| Phone voice recorders | Recording date and time; on some phones the GPS position, and iPhone Voice Memos can name recordings after the place | M4A movie header, ©day, ©xyz, location keys |
| Music stores | Buyer’s name, Apple ID e-mail, purchase date, store IDs | apID, ownr, purd and other iTunes atoms, PRIV frames |
| CD rippers and taggers | Your name in comments, “encoded by”, software and settings | COMM, TENC, TSSE, Vorbis ENCODER |
| Field recorders and DAWs | Device model, project and take names, recording time | WAV bext and iXML chunks, RIFF INFO |
| Download sites | Website addresses and promotion text | Comments, URL frames, APE tags |
Limits worth knowing
- MP3 files often start with a LAME or Xing header frame that names the encoder version. It is part of the audio stream and needed for exact seeking, so it is kept.
- Anything you can hear — a voice saying a name, background sounds — is not metadata. Trim or edit the audio itself if needed.
- The file name and the dates your computer shows belong to the file system, not the file. Rename the download if the name is revealing.
- AIFF, WMA, APE and WavPack files can be inspected in the Audio Metadata Viewer but not cleaned here; convert them to one of the supported formats first.
Related tools
To change tags instead of deleting them, use the ID3 Tag Editor; to clear only junk such as website names while keeping proper tags, use the MP3 Tag Cleaner. For videos and photos, the same kind of clean-up is done by Remove Video Metadata and the EXIF Remover.
Remove Audio Metadata FAQ
How do I remove all tags from an MP3?
Drop the MP3 here and press “Remove metadata” with nothing ticked under “Keep these”. ID3v2, ID3v1, APE and Lyrics3 tags and the cover art are removed, and the clean copy is checked before you download it.
Does removing metadata change the audio quality?
No. The sound data is not decoded or re-encoded — it is copied as it is, and a SHA-256 hash proves it is identical to the original.
Can I remove the location from a voice memo?
Yes. Location data stored by phone recorders in M4A files (QuickTime ©xyz, 3GPP loci and location keys) is removed, and the recording date in the file headers is reset.
Can I keep the song title but remove everything else?
Yes. Tick “Song info” (and “Cover art” if you like) under “Keep these”. Comments, encoder names, store IDs and other details are still removed.
Why is the cleaned file smaller?
Embedded cover art is often 100 KB to several MB, and lyrics, padding and other blocks add more. Removing them shrinks the file without affecting the sound.
Are my files uploaded?
No. Everything happens in your browser; the files never leave your device.