Privacy Basics

How to Remove Metadata from Multiple Files at Once (Free Batch Cleaner)

MetaClean Pro now supports batch uploads — clean up to 20 files at once and download them all as a single ZIP. Here's how it works and who needs it.

2026-08-16 · 6 min read

Quick answer: MetaClean Pro now supports batch uploads — drop up to 20 files at once (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC, PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), and it strips metadata from all of them in one pass, then packages the cleaned files into a single ZIP you download in one click. Each file still counts against your plan's document limit, same as cleaning one file at a time.

If you've ever had to clean metadata from a folder of client photos, a batch of scanned contracts, or a whole shoot's worth of images before handing them off, you already know how tedious one-file-at-a-time tools get. Here's how batch cleaning actually works, and when you'd want to use it.

Who actually needs batch metadata removal

• Real estate agents uploading 20–40 listing photos that all carry GPS coordinates from the property.
• Photographers delivering a full shoot to a client and stripping camera serial numbers and settings from every frame.
• Law firms and paralegals preparing a batch of scanned or exported PDFs for filing, where author names and revision history need to come out of every document.
• HR and recruiting teams sanitizing a stack of resumes or offer letters before sharing them externally.
• Small businesses cleaning product photos in bulk before listing them on a marketplace.

Doing this one file at a time isn't just slow — it's easy to miss one file in the pile, which defeats the point.

How batch cleaning works in MetaClean Pro

1. Drop multiple files onto the upload area, or select several at once from the file picker. You'll see a per-file progress bar as each one uploads.
2. Choose your cleaning options once — strip mode by default, with a deep-scrub toggle for PDFs and a lossy re-encode toggle for JPEGs, both of which apply across the whole batch.
3. Click "Clean all" — files process sequentially, and each one shows a live status (cleaning, done, or flagged) as it finishes.
4. Download everything as one ZIP once the batch completes, instead of downloading each file individually.

What happens if you hit your free-tier limit mid-batch

Free accounts get 2 documents, lifetime. If you drop 5 files with only 1 slot left, MetaClean Pro cleans the file you have room for, marks the remaining files as needing an upgrade, and lets you download what's already done — it doesn't fail the whole batch just because you ran out of quota partway through. Premium accounts don't hit this at all, since document cleaning is unlimited on that plan.

Does batch cleaning do anything different to each file?

No — a batch upload runs the exact same cleaning engine as a single-file upload. GPS and EXIF stripping for images, Info-dictionary clearing (or full deep scrub) for PDFs, and metadata rewriting for Office XML files all work identically whether you upload one file or twenty. Batch mode is purely a workflow shortcut: same cleaning, less clicking.

FAQ

Is there a limit on how many files I can batch-upload at once?

Up to 20 files per batch. If you need to clean more than that, run a second batch — there's no cooldown between batches.

Does the ZIP download cost anything extra?

No. Batch upload, per-file cleaning, and the ZIP download are all included at whatever plan tier you're already on (Free or Premium) — batching isn't a separate paid feature.

Can I mix file types in one batch — like photos and PDFs together?

Yes. A single batch can contain any mix of the supported formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX), and each file gets the metadata-stripping logic appropriate to its type.

What if one file in the batch fails to clean?

That file is flagged with an error and the rest of the batch continues — one bad or corrupted file doesn't stop the others from processing.

Clean a batch of files now.

Try MetaClean Pro free — remove metadata from your files in seconds.