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Remove location data from your photos

Phones write GPS coordinates into photos by default, usually accurate to a few meters. There are two halves to dealing with that: stop new photos recording location, and strip it from the photos you already have. The first is a settings change, described below. The second you can do here, in your browser, without the photo being uploaded.

Works today, in your browser. Photos open in the editor and Word documents are checked for hidden data; either way the file is read on your device and never uploaded.

Check & clean a file freeHow we can promise that

Stop new photos recording location — iPhone

Three places control it, and they do different things:

  • Per share: in the share sheet, tap Options at the top and switch Location off — removes it from that copy only
  • Per photo: open the photo, tap the info button, Adjust, then No Location
  • For the camera: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never

Stop new photos recording location — Android

Open the camera app’s own settings and turn off location tags (the wording varies by manufacturer — "location tags", "save location", "geotagging"). Google Photos can also hide location when sharing: Photos settings → Sharing → Hide photo location data, which affects shared links rather than the file itself.

Where the built-in options fall short

The native switches are real and worth using, and they have the same three gaps: they work one photo or one share at a time, they do nothing for the photos you took before changing the setting, and none of them shows you whether it worked.

Checking the file here closes the loop: open the photo, see exactly what it still carries — location is not the only field — and download a copy with the metadata removed. A JPEG is not re-compressed, so the picture is untouched.

How to do it

  1. 1Open the photoThe metadata is read on your device and listed in plain language.
  2. 2Look for "where the photo was taken"If coordinates are present, that finding says what they expose.
  3. 3Download the cleaned copyGPS and the rest of the metadata removed. Drop it back in to verify.

Questions

  • Only if you ask it to, per share: Options at the top of the share sheet, then Location off. It is easy to miss and does not change the original file.

Related

We report no issues found, never “safe”. Absence of detections is not proof of absence, and detection is best-effort.