How to remove the location from a photo before you share it
On an iPhone, tap Share, then Options, and turn off Location before you send. On a Samsung phone, tick Remove location data in the Gallery share screen. On a Pixel, turn off Save location in the camera settings so new photos never carry it. Those three switches matter because a phone photo can hold the exact coordinates where it was taken, and that record travels with the file to whoever receives it. It can also travel further. When the screenshot service Gyazo reported a breach on 16 September 2026, the stolen image metadata included embedded location data for pictures uploaded years earlier. Here is where the location hides, which ways of sharing keep it, and how to take it out.
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Where does a photo keep its location?
Inside the file itself, in a block of hidden data called EXIF, short for Exchangeable Image File Format. When your camera app has permission to use your location, it writes the GPS coordinates into that block at the moment you take the picture. The same block holds the date and time and the phone model. None of it is visible in the image. All of it is readable by anyone who has the file and a free viewer.
Apple's personal safety guide says it plainly: sharing a photo or video includes sharing its metadata, such as the date and time, the location, the device and any captions. To see what a photo of yours carries, open it in Photos on an iPhone and swipe up, or tap the info button. A map with a pin means the coordinates are in the file.
How precise is that pin? Precise enough to find a swimming pool. In December 2012 Vice published a photo of John McAfee, then wanted for questioning in Belize, taken on an iPhone 4S. Readers pulled the coordinates from the file within hours and placed him at a restaurant in Guatemala. He denied it, then confirmed he was in Guatemala. The same thing works on a picture of your front garden, your child's school gate or the view from a holiday flat.
How do you remove the location on an iPhone?
For a single share, use the Options switch in the share sheet. For good, stop the camera recording it. Both paths below are from Apple's current support documentation.
Share one photo without its location. Select the photo in Photos, tap the Share button, then tap Options at the top of the share sheet and turn off Location. The preview then reads Location Not Included. The switch applies to that share only. Next time, you do it again.
Remove the location from the photo in your library. Open the photo, tap the More button, then Adjust Info, Adjust Location and No Location. On a Mac, select the photo in Photos and choose Image › Location › Hide Location.
Stop new photos carrying a location. Go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services › Camera and choose Never. You lose the map view and location search for new pictures. You keep everything else. Photos you already took keep their coordinates, so the two steps above still matter for older pictures.
How do you remove the location on Android?
It depends on the maker, because the camera and gallery apps differ. The switch to stop the camera saving a location exists on all the common ones. A share-time switch exists on Samsung phones.
Pixel phones. Open the Camera app, tap Settings at the bottom left, then More settings, and turn off Save location. That is Google's documented path in the Pixel Camera help.
Samsung phones. In the Gallery app, long press a photo to select it, tap Share and tick Remove location data before you choose where to send it. Samsung says the recipient then cannot see where the photo was taken. The camera switch that stops new photos carrying a location is called Location tags in the camera settings. On some recent Galaxy models, turning on the maximum restrictions level of Samsung's Auto Blocker also removes location from shared images automatically.
Google Photos. This is where people get caught out. Google Photos can only remove a location it estimated or that you added yourself. If the camera wrote the location into the file, Google's help page says you cannot edit or remove it in Google Photos. The fix there is the camera switch, and for older photos a gallery app that can strip the data on sharing.
Android does give you one protection by default. Since Android 10, apps that read your photo library get the location hidden from them unless they ask for a separate permission and you grant it. That protects you from apps browsing your gallery. It does not change what is inside a file you choose to send.
Which ways of sharing keep the location?
Any route that sends the original file keeps it. Routes that re-encode the image for display usually drop it. The trouble is that you cannot see the difference from the send button.
Email is the clearest case. Google's help page for Google Photos states that when you download a photo and email it, the original location your device saved goes with it, whatever edits you made in Google Photos. Tests published by BulkPicTools found the same for Gmail, Discord and AirDrop, and for Telegram and WhatsApp when a picture is sent as a file or document rather than as a photo. Cloud links are a mixed picture. Google Photos says albums, links and conversations you share from inside the app leave out location by default, except for partner sharing. A file shared from a general cloud drive is the original file.
If the platform strips it, is that enough?
For strangers, mostly. For the platform, no. Independent tests report that Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit remove the coordinates from the copy that other people see and download. They do that by processing the image after it arrives. The file that arrives is the one your phone sent, coordinates included, unless your phone removed them first.
That matters for a reason the Gyazo case shows well. A service can hold your original files for years. Helpfeel, the company behind Gyazo, said the stolen data included about 490 million metadata records, mostly for images registered in or before January 2019, and listed EXIF location data, where the image contained it, alongside the IP address used for each upload. People who uploaded a holiday snapshot in 2017 had no reason to think about it in 2026. The coordinates were still there. The same breach also exposed password hashes, which is covered in our piece on what "hashed passwords" in a breach notice really means.
The practical rule follows from that. Treat anything a service does after upload as a courtesy, not as protection. Strip the location on the phone, and it is not in the upload, not in the backup and not in the next breach.
What does removing the location not cover?
The picture itself. Google's own help page warns that even without a stored location, people may be able to work out where a photo was taken from landmarks in it. A street sign, a house number, a school badge or the view from a window can do the job the coordinates did. Before you post a picture of your home or your children, look at the background as a stranger would.
It also does not cover the time. EXIF keeps the date and the minute a photo was taken, and a series of photos with times can show a routine as clearly as a map. The Location switch in the iPhone share sheet removes the coordinates, not the time. On the same Options screen, leave All Photos Data off unless you mean to use it. Apple describes it as sending the original file with its edit history and metadata, over AirDrop.
And it does not reach the other signals your phone and browser give off while you share. The upload itself shows the service your IP address, which is how Gyazo came to hold one for each image. For the tracking that happens in the browser, the Global Privacy Control setting that tells sites not to sell your data covers a different part of the problem. Removing the location from a photo does one job. It is a two-minute job, and it is worth doing before the file leaves your hands, because afterwards nobody can do it for you.
Sources
- Manage location metadata in Photos, Apple Personal Safety User Guide, for viewing, removing and not sharing location on iPhone and Mac, and for the Camera setting under Location Services
- Share photos and videos on iPhone, Apple iPhone User Guide, for the Options switch in the share sheet and the metadata that is shared
- How can I activate location tags on my Galaxy device?, Samsung support, for the Location tags switch in the Camera settings
- Change your Camera app settings, Pixel Camera Help, Google, for the Save location switch
- Change your camera location settings, Google Photos Help, for the camera location settings by device maker
- Understand, find and edit your photos' locations, Google Photos Help, for camera-added locations that cannot be removed and for downloaded and emailed photos keeping the original location
- How Google Photos protects your location data, Google Photos Help, for location being left out of shares by default and the warning about landmarks
- Removing location data from photos in the Gallery, Samsung support, for the Remove location data option when sharing
- Why is location information removed when sharing pictures on Fold6 and Flip6?, Samsung support, for automatic removal under Auto Blocker's maximum restrictions
- Access media files from shared storage, Android Developers, for location being hidden from apps by default and the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission
- Official notice on the unauthorised access to Gyazo, Helpfeel Inc., 16 September 2026, for the 490 million metadata records, the January 2019 cut-off, EXIF location data and upload IP addresses
- Gyazo breach exposes 23.62 million user records and 490 million image metadata records, The Hacker News, September 2026
- Betrayed by metadata, John McAfee admits he's really in Guatemala, NPR, 4 December 2012
- Geotagged iPhone photograph leads to fugitive software tycoon's downfall, PetaPixel, 7 December 2012, for the iPhone 4S and the coordinates
- Does Gmail, Discord and X strip EXIF data? We tested 12, BulkPicTools, 2026, for which services keep or strip location. The publisher does not describe its test method in detail.