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PRIVACY

How to remove location data from photos before you share them

Phone photos often carry the exact GPS position where they were taken. How to check for it, remove only the location, and stop your camera adding it.

· 5 min read

Photos taken on a phone usually record exactly where they were taken. That is handy for your own albums, but when you send the original file to someone, post it on a marketplace or attach it to an email, the location goes with it. Here is how to check for it, remove only the location, and stop your camera adding it in future.

How location gets into a photo

When location access is allowed, the camera app saves GPS coordinates in the photo's EXIF metadata, often with altitude and the direction you were facing. Some apps also copy the location into the XMP block. The coordinates are typically accurate to a few metres, enough to identify a building.

Check whether a photo has a location

  1. Open Inspect and drop the photo on the page.
  2. If a location is present, you will see a GPS group with the badge This photo contains a location, and the coordinates.
  3. To see the place on a map, choose Show map or Open in OpenStreetMap. Maps are only loaded when you ask, because loading map tiles tells the map provider roughly where the photo was taken.

Remove only the location

In Inspect, select Remove location to download a copy without the GPS data. For many photos at once, open Clean, choose Custom and the Location only preset, then Clean all.

Exifo removes the GPS entries from inside the EXIF block without changing its size, so the rest of the metadata, such as the date and camera settings, stays readable. Any location stored in XMP is removed as well. The image data is copied unchanged.

Stop your camera saving the location

  • iPhone: Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera, then Never. When sharing a single photo, you can also tap Options in the share sheet and turn off Location.
  • Android: open the camera app's settings and turn off the option to save or tag location. The name varies by manufacturer.

Location can hide elsewhere

  • IPTC and XMP can hold a city, region and country as text. Use Remove everything if you want those gone too.
  • The picture itself can give a place away: street signs, house numbers, landmarks and the view from a window.

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