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Aktar feature

Photos that leave lighter, and without their location

A photo from your phone usually knows exactly where it was taken, and weighs several megabytes. Aktar removes the location before anything is uploaded, and can turn a 4.8 MB photo into a 600 KB WebP, set per destination.

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Free · Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad & Android · No account

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Available in
  • Mac0.8.0
  • Windows0.3.0
  • iPhone & iPad1.3.0
  • Android1.4.0

Shared photos say more than you meant

Most phones save the GPS position in every photo. Upload it to a public bucket and anyone with the link can read where it was taken: your home, your office, your kid's school.

And a full-size photo is heavier than any page or chat needs, so it loads slowly and costs bandwidth. Aktar handles both before the file leaves your device.

How it works

  1. 1

    Location is removed by default

    Image metadata in a destination's Upload Defaults is Remove location unless you change it.

  2. 2

    Turn on Image Processing

    Pick WebP or AVIF, a compression level and a longest side, if you want lighter files.

  3. 3

    Upload as usual

    Every photo from every way of uploading is cleaned and converted before it's sent.

What you get

  • WebP or AVIF

    Convert photos and screenshots to modern formats that are a fraction of the size.

  • Light, Medium or Strong

    Recompression levels for the balance you want between size and detail.

  • Resized to fit

    Shrink images to a longest side of 1024 to 3840 px, the size your pages and chats actually show.

  • Location, or everything

    Remove location drops the GPS position; Remove all also drops the camera, lens and date.

  • Stops instead of leaking

    If metadata can't be removed, the upload stops and says so, instead of sharing where the photo was taken.

  • Folders and ZIPs too

    Photos inside a folder upload or a ZIP lose their location the same way.

What gets cleaned

Location is removed from JPEG, HEIC, PNG, TIFF, WebP, AVIF and GIF images, and from .mov, .mp4 and .m4v videos. Videos are copied without re-encoding, just without their location, so it's quick and the picture is untouched. Images keep their pixels, orientation and colors. Screenshots and files with nothing to remove are uploaded untouched.

What gets converted

Image Processing is off until you turn it on, per destination, so you can keep originals in one destination and web-ready copies in another. GIFs, SVGs and files inside ZIPs are left as they are, and images over 100 megapixels are uploaded as they are. On Android, AVIF isn't available yet; WebP is.

Questions

Is the location really gone, or just hidden?

Gone. The GPS fields are removed from the file before upload, so the copy in your bucket never had them. Your original file on disk isn't changed.

Does it lower the quality of my photos?

Removing metadata doesn't touch the pixels. Converting and resizing does, by the amount you choose, and only when Image Processing is on.

Can I keep the location for some uploads?

Yes. Set Keep all on a destination for photos that should keep their metadata, and use another destination for everything else.

Which apps does this work in?

Aktar for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android, from every way of uploading, including the Finder service, the Share menu, the CLI and Raycast.

Release notes

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