How to remove location data from photos before sharing them

What location data a photo carries

Most phone photos carry a block of hidden information called Exif, short for Exchangeable image file format. Alongside the picture itself it can record camera settings, the date and time, the GPS location and identifiers for the device that took it. Wikipedia's article on Exif notes that a photo from a GPS-enabled camera can reveal the exact location and time it was taken, and that this happens by default, often without the user's knowledge.

Apple's Personal Safety User Guide describes the iPhone version of this: when Location Services is on for the Camera, photos embed coordinates gathered from cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS networks and Bluetooth, and shared photos may reveal that location to the people who receive them.

Whether the location survives a share depends on where the photo goes. Wikipedia notes that some services automatically strip Exif data while others do not treat it as an issue, and gives GitHub as an example of a service that keeps every tag, including location. The safe assumption is that the file you send is the file they get.

Why it matters for travel photos

For most travel pictures the location is not a secret. A photo from a famous viewpoint tells people where you were, and that is often the point of posting it. The problem is that the same automatic tagging applies to the photo of your front door, your hotel room or a friend's flat.

Wikipedia's Exif article records a well known case. In December 2012 Vice magazine published an interview with John McAfee, who was then avoiding the authorities, together with a photo taken on a phone that had geotagged the image. The coordinates placed him in Guatemala, and he was caught two days later. McAfee afterwards claimed he had edited the data to give a false location.

The same data is also what makes a travel photo map possible, so turning location off everywhere is not always what you want. For many people the better habit is to keep it on for their own library and strip it at the moment of sharing.

How to remove location on iPhone

1. For one share. Apple's Personal Safety User Guide gives three levels of control, and the lightest applies only to what you send. Select the photo or photos, tap the Share button, tap Options, and turn off Location. Then share as usual.
2. For a photo already in your library. Open the photo, tap the More button, choose Adjust Info, tap Adjust Location, then choose No Location. On a Mac, select the photos and choose Image, then Location, then Hide Location.
3. For every photo from now on. Go to Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Location Services, then Camera, and choose Never.

How to remove location on Android

Android needs more care, because Google Photos cannot remove every kind of location. Google's Photos Help says you can only change or remove estimated locations and locations you added yourself. If the location was added automatically by your camera, you cannot update or remove it in Google Photos.

Google Photos does control what it shares. According to the same help page, a location estimated by Google Photos is not shared when you share a photo, but a location you added or edited is. Shared albums have a Share photo locations switch under Share, then Options, and location sharing in conversations is off by default. Those rules apply inside Google Photos; a file you send some other way can still carry what the camera wrote.

To stop the camera recording location at all, use Android's app permissions. Android Help gives the path as Settings, then Apps, then your camera app, then Permissions, where you can set Location to Don't allow. Your camera app may also have its own location switch in its settings, and it is worth turning that off too.

For photos already taken with a location, Wikipedia's Exif article points to the general fix: remove the Exif data with a metadata removal tool before the file leaves your phone.

Common mistakes with photo location

Assuming the site will clean it for you. Some services strip Exif and some keep all of it, as Wikipedia's GitHub example shows. Remove the location yourself if it matters.

Removing a label rather than the data. In Google Photos, removing an estimated location does nothing to the coordinates the camera stored in the file, according to Google's help page.

Assuming the share setting changes the photo. On iPhone the Location switch under Options controls what is sent. Apple lists removing location from the photo itself as a separate step, so the original in your library keeps its location unless you change it with Adjust Location or stop the Camera recording it.

Forgetting that maps are the point of some apps. Travel photo maps need a location to place a photo, so the question is how precisely that location is shown to other people. Stampic, for example, removes GPS data from the photo file on its server and shows other users a pin offset 30 to 50 meters from where you stood, while the original coordinates are never returned to anyone else.

Frequently asked questions