Remove EXIF Metadata from GoPro HERO13 Black Photos

Remove EXIF Metadata from GoPro HERO13 Black Photos

Still-photo EXIF and video telemetry are two different systems on the HERO13 Black, and conflating them is the most common mistake GoPro owners make when trying to scrub their footage. The GoPro HERO13 Black captures 27-megapixel photos and brought GPS data logging back after it was removed from the previous HERO12 model, recording position, altitude, and speed at 10Hz using the same GPS chip found in the HERO11.¹ For still photos, this GPS data appears as standard EXIF metadata, while video files carry a separate, more detailed telemetry stream used for overlays in GoPro's Quik app. A mixed library spanning several camera generations makes this even less intuitive, since metadata habits cannot be applied uniformly without first checking which model actually captured a given file.

Specifications¹

Why GoPro photo metadata history matters for your library

Anyone with a mixed GoPro library spanning several camera generations should know that GPS behavior has not been consistent across models. The HERO12 Black shipped without GPS recording at all, a change from the HERO11 before it, and the HERO13 Black brought GPS back using the same GPS chip as the HERO11.² Consequently, whether a specific photo in your library carries GPS metadata depends on which camera generation captured it, not just whether location services were enabled.

Why a video tool will not clean a photo, or vice versa

GPMF telemetry extractors and EXIF scrubbers solve genuinely different problems and are not interchangeable. A tool built to parse the dense GPMF stream out of a video file has no concept of a JPEG's EXIF segment, and a scrubber built for photo EXIF cannot reach into a video's telemetry track. Picking the wrong tool for the file type in front of you simply will not work.

The GoPro Telemetry Extractor project, built specifically to pull GPMF data out of video files, documents this distinction directly: the HERO13 records GPS position, altitude, and speed at 10Hz during video, matching the same telemetry rate as the HERO11 before it. That project exists as a dedicated tool precisely because GPMF is not a format any general-purpose EXIF utility understands, and no EXIF scrubber would know where to look for a telemetry stream sampled ten times per second. The two ecosystems, one built around EXIF tags and one built around GPMF frames, simply do not overlap.

Photo EXIF versus video telemetry: two separate systems

Still photos on the HERO13 Black use standard EXIF metadata for GPS, recorded once per shot in the same way a smartphone photo would be. Video, by contrast, uses the GPMF (GoPro Metadata Format) telemetry stream, which logs position, altitude, and speed at 10Hz throughout the entire recording, far denser than a single EXIF tag. These are genuinely different systems requiring different tools, so a scrubber built for photo EXIF will not touch the telemetry embedded in a video file. Knowing which system applies to a given file is the first decision to make before reaching for any cleanup tool at all.

What the HERO13's GPS chip actually records in each photo

The HERO13 Black uses the same Ublox Max-M10S GPS chip that appeared in the HERO11 Black, recording position, altitude, and speed at 10Hz during active recording.³ For still photos, the GPS data gets written into standard EXIF tags: GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude, and GPSTimeStamp. The altitude value is particularly precise on the HERO13 because the chip barometric pressure sensor provides altitude readings accurate to within roughly 1.5 metres, which is tighter than the GPS-only altitude estimate.

Why altitude matters more on an action camera than a phone

A smartphone photo typically records altitude only when GPS is active, and the value can drift by 10 metres or more in urban environments. The HERO13's barometric altimeter gives a more stable reading, which means the altitude metadata in a GoPro photo is often more accurate than what a phone records. For a viewer trying to determine where a photo was taken, a precise altitude reading combined with GPS coordinates narrows the location to a specific floor of a building or a specific trail elevation.

Cleaning up after a mixed GoPro and phone shoot

Many creators shoot with both a GoPro and a smartphone during the same session, then combine the footage in editing software. The two devices write metadata differently: the GoPro uses standard EXIF with a simpler MakerNote structure, while a phone like a Samsung or iPhone writes a much larger MakerNote block with scene classifications, AI processing tags, and lens correction data.⁴

A single scrub handles both sources

Regardless of which device captured a given file, you can sort a mixed GoPro and phone shoot in one pass, since the tool detects and removes whatever metadata each file carries, whether it is a GoPro photo with GPS and altitude, a phone photo with scene optimiser tags, or a screenshot with basic timestamp data. One pass through the scrubber cleans the entire mixed collection, so you do not need to sort files by source device before processing.