Remove location data from photos

Most phone photos quietly record where they were taken. The coordinates sit in the file's metadata, and unless something removes them they travel with the photo when you email it, post it on a forum or send the original to someone. For a picture of a park that may not matter. For one taken at your home, a school or a workplace, it can.

There are three places to stop it: at the camera, when you share, and in files you already have. This guide covers each on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac, how to check the result, and what stripping does not cover. It is about protecting your own photos.

Check what the photo contains first

Before you change anything, look. Open a photo in the Image Metadata Viewer. If it has GPS data you will see a location group with decimal coordinates, altitude and facing direction, and the "What this file reveals" summary flags it. The map links only load when you click them. Built-in tools can show it too: Windows has a GPS section on the Details tab, Preview on the Mac has a GPS pane, and the iPhone Info panel shows a map.

A missing location group does not make a file clean. Other metadata can still identify you, such as an owner name, a camera serial number or an embedded thumbnail. Our guide to EXIF data explains each field.

Why photos carry location

When location access is on for the camera app, the phone works out where a photo was taken from cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth signals and writes the coordinates into the file. Apple says this is what lets you search photos by place, and also that people you share the files with may be able to see where they were taken. Android camera apps work the same way, with their own setting. The coordinates can be precise enough to show which building you were standing in.

The three places to stop it

1. At the source. Turn off location tagging in the camera app. This affects new photos only, and you lose map views and search by place for them. Google notes that photos without location may not appear in its map view or in trip memories.
2. When you share. Phone share sheets can leave location out of the copy you send, while the original keeps it.
3. In existing files. Strip the metadata from a copy before you post it or send it on.

iPhone and iPad

These steps follow Apple's guide to location metadata in Photos.

• Stop the camera adding location: go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera and choose Never. This affects new photos only.
• Leave location out when sharing: select photos in Photos, tap the Share button, tap Options and turn off Location. "Location Not Included" appears above the Options button. Check this each time you share rather than assuming it stays off.
• Remove it from one photo in your library: open the photo, tap the More button, then choose Adjust Info > Adjust Location > No Location.

Android

Camera location is set in the camera app, and the label depends on the maker. These come from Google's list of camera location settings:

For sharing, Samsung's Gallery app has a checkbox: select the photos, tap Share and tick "Remove Location data" before choosing an app. Samsung documents this for One UI 3.0 and later. Google Photos works differently. Google says new shared albums, links and conversations do not include location by default, but a photo you download and send through another app can still carry it. Google Photos also cannot remove a location your camera saved into the file. It can only edit estimated locations and ones you added yourself. For camera-saved coordinates, turn off the camera setting and strip files you plan to send.

Other gallery apps vary, and some have no share-time option. If yours does not, use the file methods below.

Windows

Right-click the photo, choose Properties, open the Details tab and click Remove Properties and Personal Information. You get two choices. The default creates a copy of the file with all the properties it can remove stripped out (the original name gets "Copy" added). The other, Remove the following properties from this file, lets you tick individual properties, such as the GPS entries, and removes them permanently from that file. If a property has no checkbox, Windows cannot edit it.

Mac

Preview. Open the photo, choose Tools > Show Inspector, then open the More Info tab and its GPS section. Apple's Preview guide documents viewing the location (Tools > Show Location Info; the item is gray when there is no location data). Community guides and Apple Community posts describe a Remove Location Info button in that GPS section, followed by File > Save. Apple's guide does not mention the button, so work on a copy and check the result. If you already imported the photo into Photos, note that Photos can ignore metadata changes made to a file outside the library.

Photos. Select the photos, then choose Image > Location > Hide Location. Revert to Original Location is the other choice in that menu, and Apple says it only removes a location you assigned yourself. Apple's guide does not say what Hide Location does to files you export, so export a copy and check it before you post it.

Strip metadata from files you already have

The built-in options work one photo at a time and differ by system. For a folder of files, the Image Metadata Remover takes one or many images and removes EXIF (including GPS), XMP, IPTC, comments, text chunks, Content Credentials, embedded thumbnails and trailing data from JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF files. It does this without re-encoding the pixels, so image quality does not change. It has two options, both on by default: keep the color profile, and keep the rotation tag, because many phone photos store their rotation in EXIF and would show up sideways without it. It shows before and after file sizes, re-scans each cleaned copy to confirm what is left, and lets you download files one by one or as a ZIP. Open a file in the viewer before and after to compare what changed.

Some limits to know:

• Formats. AVIF, TIFF, BMP and similar files cannot be cleaned in place. You can re-save them as PNG or JPEG, which does re-encode the pixels. Most browsers cannot decode HEIC, so it cannot be cleaned there. Convert it on your phone or computer first.
• All or nothing. It removes all the metadata, not just the location, so copyright and credit fields go too. The viewer's "download without metadata" button works the same way for JPEG, PNG and WebP, and it cannot remove only the location.
• Content Credentials go too. Removing the metadata removes a Content Credentials manifest, and with it the signed record. Our guide to Content Credentials and watermarks covers what those records are.

Verify the result

1. Open the cleaned copy, not the original, in the viewer.
2. Check that the GPS group is gone and that "What this file reveals" no longer lists a location. Also look at the thumbnail, XMP, IPTC and PNG text groups.
3. Check that the picture is upright and the colors look right.
4. Share the cleaned copy and keep the original somewhere private.

Test the exact file you will upload. A gallery app may show a map from its own database, which tells you nothing about what the file itself contains.

What stripping does not cover

• The picture itself. Street signs, shop fronts, a distinctive skyline or a view from a window can give a place away. Google notes that people may guess a location from landmarks in a photo even without location details.
• Filenames and captions. A file named after a street, or a caption that names a venue, does the same job as coordinates.
• The thumbnail. Some editors do not refresh the embedded thumbnail after a crop, so an old uncropped view can remain. Removing only GPS fields leaves the thumbnail in place, while a full strip drops it.
• Platforms that recompress. Some messaging apps and social networks remove metadata and others keep it, and their behavior changes. Do not rely on it, and strip first if it matters.
• Copies already sent. Cleaning a file does not recall earlier copies.

This guide covers still photos only. Videos carry their own location metadata, and the steps here do not address it.