Remove Content Credentials and AI labels from an image.
AI image tools, some cameras and photo editors now sign a record into the file: what made it, who signed it, what was edited and whether AI was involved. Here is what it holds, how to read it, and how to remove it before you send the file.
What the label is
Content Credentials follow an open standard called C2PA. The record is a signed block inside the file: in a JPEG it sits in APP11 segments, in a PNG in a caBX chunk. It can name the app that made the image, the certificate that signed it, the actions taken (created, edited, cropped), the files it was made from and, through a "digital source type", whether it was made by AI or by a camera. The standard also allows the record to carry a thumbnail of the image and of the files it was made from.
A second, older label sits in the photo's XMP metadata: the IPTC digital source type. IPTC notes that platforms such as Meta read both kinds when deciding whether to show an AI label.
Who adds it
- OpenAI: images made with ChatGPT, Codex and the API carry C2PA metadata and a SynthID watermark, per OpenAI's help article.
- Pixel phones: Google says Pixel Camera on the Pixel 10 attaches Content Credentials to every JPEG it captures, and Google Photos adds them to images edited with AI tools.
- Editing apps: photo editors that support the standard can add a record when you export, listing the edits.
So a label does not only mean "made by AI". A plain photo from a recent phone can carry one too.
Why remove it, and what it does not change
The record is about the file's history, and history can be more than you meant to send: the app and version, the signer, the list of edits, the files it was built from, and possibly a thumbnail of the image before it was cropped. Removing it is the same as removing EXIF: the recipient gets the picture and not its paper trail.
It does not change what the picture is. OpenAI adds an invisible SynthID watermark to the pixels precisely so a signal survives when the metadata does not, and removing metadata leaves that watermark in place. Visible watermarks stay too. If a platform's rules ask you to say that an image was made with AI, removing the record does not change that.
See whether a file has one
- Content Credentials Verify: the Verify tool at contentcredentials.org reads the record and shows the signer and the edits. You upload the file to their site to do it.
- OpenAI: openai.com/verify checks for an OpenAI record or a SynthID watermark, per OpenAI.
- Google Photos: on a JPEG with credentials, the details appear in a section of the About panel, per Google.
- exiftool: the record is in the
JUMBFgroup.exiftool -a -G1 -s file.jpglists it with everything else.
Remove it with the tools you have
exiftool deletes the record from JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF-based and QuickTime-based files by deleting the JUMBF group, per its documentation. Add -xmp:all= to remove the XMP, where the IPTC label sits:
exiftool -jumbf:all= -xmp:all= file.jpgexiftool keeps the original as file.jpg_original; send the other one. A screenshot or a re-export to a new file also usually drops the record, as OpenAI notes, but it re-encodes the picture and can carry the screen's own metadata.
Or clean it here
FileSanity reads Content Credentials in JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC and video files and lists what they say, the app, the signer, whether it is marked as AI and the edits, then removes the record along with the EXIF and XMP. The picture is not re-encoded. The file stays in your browser.
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