How to remove location data from photos

Why photos contain a location

When location access is on for the camera, your phone writes the GPS coordinates of each photo into the file, in a block of metadata called EXIF, next to the date, time and phone model. You don’t see it in the picture, but anyone who receives the original file can read it and put it on a map.

Whether the location travels with a photo depends on how you share it. Some apps remove it, but sending the original file, for example by email, as a document attachment or through a cloud link, usually keeps it. Removing it yourself is the only way to be sure.

Check whether a photo has a location

Open the photo in Remove EXIF Data. Before anything is removed, it lists what each photo contains, with the location first, as coordinates. The photo is read in your browser and never uploaded, so this is safe to do with private pictures.

On iPhone or iPad

Share a photo without its location (from Apple’s Personal Safety guide):

1. 1In Photos, select the photo or photos and tap the Share button.
2. 2Tap Options, then turn off Location. “Location Not Included” appears above the Options button.
3. 3Share the photos with any of the methods in the Share Sheet.

Remove the location from a photo in your library: open the photo, tap the More button, then Adjust Info › Adjust Location › No Location.

Stop the camera from saving locations: go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services › Camera, and choose Never.

On Android

Stop the camera from saving locations on a Pixel phone: open the Camera app, tap Settings at the bottom left, then More settings, and turn off Save location. Other phone makers have a similar switch in their camera app’s settings; its name varies.

Photos you have already taken are harder. Google Photos lets you change or remove a location you added or one it estimated, but according to Google’s help page, a location added automatically by your camera can’t be removed there. To remove it from the file itself, use the steps for computers below; they work in a phone’s browser too.

On a computer, or for many photos at once

1. 1Open Remove EXIF Data and drop your photos on the page (JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 50 at a time).
2. 2Under What to remove, keep All metadata, keep orientation (recommended). It removes the location, dates, camera details and comments, and keeps the setting that shows sideways photos the right way up.
3. 3Select Remove metadata and download the cleaned photos, one by one or as a ZIP file.
4. 4Share the downloaded copies, not the originals.

The image itself is copied byte for byte, so the cleaned photo looks exactly the same and loses no quality. iPhone photos in HEIC format need converting first: open them in Convert Image, which also drops the location when it saves the JPG.

On a Mac, the Photos app can hide a location (Image › Location › Hide Location), but that changes what Photos shows. Check an exported copy with Remove EXIF Data before you share it.

What else a photo can reveal

• The date and time it was taken, often to the second.
• The phone or camera model, and with some cameras its serial number.
• The software used to edit it, and any captions or comments.
• A small embedded preview (thumbnail) of the picture.

Removing all metadata, as above, takes these out too. Things visible in the picture, such as a street sign or a window view, stay: only cropping or editing the image changes those.