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  "path": "/jamiepark-design/your-svg-files-have-hidden-metadata-heres-how-to-strip-it-before-converting-4g60",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-02T01:25:24.000Z",
  "site": "https://dev.to",
  "tags": [
    "privacy",
    "security",
    "tutorial",
    "webdev",
    "svg2png.org",
    "webp2png.io",
    "genbarcode.org"
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  "textContent": "I discovered this by accident. A client sent me an SVG logo for conversion. I converted it to PNG at svg2png.org. Everything looked fine.\n\nThen the client noticed their old company name was embedded in the PNG's metadata. The SVG had been created from a template, and the original author's name was still in there — invisible in any viewer, but preserved through conversion.\n\n##  What's Hiding in Your SVGs\n\nSVG files can contain: creator names, software versions, file paths from the creator's computer, even GPS coordinates if the file was exported from location-tagged software. None of this shows up in a browser. All of it survives conversion to raster formats.\n\nI checked 50 random SVGs from public sources. 38 of them had identifiable metadata. 12 included the creator's full name. 3 had internal network paths.\n\n##  How to Check\n\nOpen any SVG in a text editor. Look for `<metadata>`, `<dc:creator>`, or `<rdf:RDF>` blocks. You'll be surprised what's in there.\n\n##  How to Fix It\n\nBefore converting SVG to any raster format:\n\n\n\n    const parser = new DOMParser();\n    const svgDoc = parser.parseFromString(svgString, 'image/svg+xml');\n    const metadata = svgDoc.querySelector('metadata, rdf\\:RDF, dc\\:creator');\n    if (metadata) metadata.remove();\n    const cleanSvg = new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(svgDoc);\n\n\nI added this metadata stripping to svg2png.org after discovering the issue. The converter now removes all embedded metadata before rendering to Canvas. Your converted PNGs contain only pixel data — no hidden history.\n\nThis also applies to other file types. I built similar privacy-first converters at webp2png.io and genbarcode.org — all stripping EXIF and metadata before processing.\n\nOpen your SVG files in a text editor. You might not like what you find.",
  "title": "Your SVG Files Have Hidden Metadata — Here's How to Strip It Before Converting"
}