How to Remove Location from Photos on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac
Published 12 November 2026 · 6 min read · By the TraceWipe team
Every photo your phone takes can quietly record exactly where it was taken — latitude, longitude and often altitude — accurate to a few metres. Post a picture taken at home, your child’s school or your office, and anyone who downloads the original file can open it on a map.
This guide shows you how to remove that location data on every major device, how to stop your camera recording it in the first place, and how to check that it is really gone.
Quick answer
- iPhone: in the Share sheet tap Options and turn off Location before sending.
- Android (Google Photos): open the photo, swipe up, tap the location and choose Remove location.
- Windows: right-click the file → Properties → Details → Remove Properties and Personal Information.
- Mac: in Photos choose Image → Location → Hide Location.
- Any device, any batch of files: drop the photos into our free metadata remover — it strips GPS and every other tag in your browser, without uploading anything.
Why photo location data is a privacy risk
Location is stored in a photo’s EXIF metadata as a set of GPS tags (GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude and their reference values). It is invisible when you look at the picture, but any metadata viewer reveals it instantly.
That matters because:
- Photos are often taken in the same few places — home, work, school. A handful of geotagged images can reveal a person’s routine.
- Many sharing channels keep the original file. Email attachments, cloud-drive links, messaging apps that send “original quality”, forums and personal websites usually pass the file through unchanged.
- Marketplace listings are a common leak. A photo of an item for sale, taken in your living room, can point straight to your door.
Large social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and X generally strip GPS data from the public copy they display — but you should not rely on every platform doing so, and the platform itself still receives the original file.
How to remove location from photos on iPhone
Remove location when sharing (keeps it in your library)
- Open Photos and select one or more pictures.
- Tap the Share button.
- At the top of the Share sheet, tap Options.
- Turn off Location, then tap Done. You will see “Location Not Included” above the Options button.
- Share as usual — by Messages, Mail, AirDrop or another app.
This only affects the copy you send. The photo in your library keeps its location, so the Places map in Photos still works.
Stop the iPhone camera saving location
Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera and choose Never. New photos will no longer be geotagged. Photos you have already taken are not changed.
Remove location from photos already in your library
Open a photo, swipe up to show its details, tap the map or location line and choose Remove Location (on some iOS versions it is under Adjust). You can also select several photos, tap the ⋯ menu and choose Adjust Location to change or remove it in bulk.
How to remove location from photos on Android
Android phones vary by manufacturer, so here are the options for the most common apps. Menu names can differ slightly between versions.
Google Photos
- One photo: open it, swipe up to see the details, tap the location (or the pencil icon next to it) and choose Remove location.
- Shared links: in Google Photos settings, look under Privacy or Sharing for Remove geo location in items shared by link. With this on, people who open your shared links won’t see where the photos were taken.
Samsung Gallery
When you tap Share in Samsung Gallery, look for a Remove location data option at the top of the share panel and turn it on before choosing an app. In the Camera settings, turn off Location tags to stop recording location for new photos.
Stop the camera recording location
- Google Pixel Camera: open Camera settings and turn off Save location.
- Most other phones: open the camera’s settings (gear icon) and look for Location tags, Geo-tagging or Save location.
- System-wide: go to Settings → Location → App permissions → Camera and choose Don’t allow.
How to remove location from photos on Windows
Windows has a built-in metadata remover in File Explorer:
- Select one or more photos in File Explorer.
- Right-click and choose Properties, then open the Details tab.
- Click Remove Properties and Personal Information at the bottom.
- Choose Create a copy with all possible properties removed (safest), or Remove the following properties from this file and tick the GPS fields.
Windows’ tool works well for basic EXIF on JPEG files, but it doesn’t always remove XMP, IPTC or C2PA data, and support for other formats is limited. If you need everything gone, use a dedicated tool.
How to remove location from photos on Mac
- Photos app: select the photos, then choose Image → Location → Hide Location. Exporting with File → Export also lets you untick Include location information.
- Preview: open the image, choose Tools → Show Inspector, open the ⓘ tab and then the GPS tab, and click Remove Location Info. Save the file.
The one-click method for any device
If you have several photos, a mix of formats, or simply want to be sure nothing is left behind, use the TraceWipe metadata remover:
- Drop up to 10 photos onto the page (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF or AVIF).
- Each photo is scanned and GPS is flagged in orange, along with camera details and any AI tags.
- Click Remove all metadata, then download the clean files individually or as a ZIP.
It removes GPS and every other metadata block — EXIF, XMP, IPTC, comments and C2PA — without re-compressing JPEG, PNG or WebP images, so quality is untouched. Everything happens in your browser; the photos are never uploaded.
Free, private and works on phone or desktop.
How to check the location is really gone
Never assume — verify. Open the cleaned file in a metadata viewer and confirm there is no GPS group and no “Photo location” line. On iPhone, the photo’s details panel should show no map. On Windows, the GPS section in Properties → Details should be empty.
Frequently asked questions
Does removing location reduce photo quality?
No. Location is stored separately from the image data. Tools that remove metadata properly — including the iPhone share option and TraceWipe for JPEG, PNG and WebP — leave the pixels untouched.
Does a screenshot remove location?
Usually yes: a screenshot is a new image and doesn’t carry the original photo’s GPS. But it does reduce quality and records when (and on which device) the screenshot was made, so removing metadata from the original is the better option.
Do WhatsApp and Instagram remove location from photos?
Instagram and Facebook strip GPS from the images they publish. WhatsApp compresses normal photos and removes most metadata, but files sent as documents or in original-quality mode can keep it. If in doubt, clean the photo first.
Can I add a location back later?
Yes. Use our photo geotagger to set a location by clicking a map — useful for organising travel photos without having had GPS turned on.
All TraceWipe tools run privately in your browser.