Does Converting a File Remove Metadata?

Sometimes metadata is removed during conversion. Sometimes part of it survives. Sometimes new metadata is created. The result depends on the source format, target format and conversion engine.

Metadata is information describing a file or its contents. Examples include creation dates, camera details, authors, software information and location data.

Re-encoding an image may omit some EXIF fields, but that should not be assumed. Different libraries preserve different metadata.

Documents can contain author names, application metadata, comments and other properties. Converting to another format may change what is preserved.

If metadata removal is important, inspect the resulting file or use a dedicated metadata-removal feature.

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