Free photo tools/Remove the location from a photo

Can someone find my location from a photo?

Yes, in two ways. A photo file can carry the GPS position where it was taken, and everyone who gets the file can read it. And the picture itself can show the place. You can check the first in a minute and remove it, and you can cover the second.

By Paul Bădărău, maker of Milkglass. Written on 7 October 2026.

Way 1: the position inside the file

A phone camera that is allowed to use the location writes the position into each photo. Apple describes it for the iPhone and names the consequence: when you share such a photo, the people you share it with "may be able to access the location metadata and learn where it was taken" (Manage location metadata in Photos).

The position is a pair of numbers, latitude and longitude, often with the altitude. Pasted into a map, the numbers show a point. A photo taken at home then marks your home, and a photo taken at school, at work, or at the gym marks the places where you are at regular times.

Reading it takes no skill. On an iPhone, the receiver opens the photo and swipes up, and Photos shows a map. Other phones and computers show it in the details of the file.

Does the position reach the other person?

It depends on how the photo travels, and you cannot see the answer from the outside.

• As a file. A photo sent as an email attachment, as a document, through a file transfer, or on a memory stick arrives as the file it was, with its position.
• From the Photos app. The share sheet has a switch for it: tap Options and turn off Location. With the switch on, the place goes along.
• Through an app or a website. Some services make their own copy of your picture and write it without the metadata, and some pass the file on. The same service can do one thing with a photo and another with a file.

So the safe order is to remove the location first and send second. A copy with no position in it is the same in every app.

How to check a photo before you send it

1. Open the remove location tool and choose the photo.
2. Read the result. The tool shows the GPS position as numbers, the altitude, and place names such as the city and the country, or it says that the photo holds no GPS position and no place name.
3. If it found a location, select Remove the location and download the copy. Send the copy.

The tool looks in three places, because a location can sit in each: the GPS fields that the camera wrote, and the place names and GPS properties that photo apps add in two other blocks of the file. It runs in your browser, and the photo stays on your device. That matters here: a check for your location should not send your location anywhere.

Way 2: what the picture shows

A photo with no metadata at all can still give the place away. These are the usual hints:

• A house number, a street sign, or a name on a doorbell.
• A license plate.
• A shop front, a bus stop, or a school logo on a jacket.
• A letter, a parcel label, or a screen in the background.
• A view from the window with a building that someone can recognize.

For these, change the picture: crop the edge, or cover the part with a solid box. The saved copy of that tool also carries no metadata, so one step does both jobs.

Which photos to be careful with

• Things you sell. A listing with a photo taken in your home tells a stranger what you own and, with the position, where it is.
• Photos of children. At home, at school, at the club where they are every Tuesday.
• Photos for people you met online. Before you have decided what they may know about you.
• Public posts. A forum, a review, a profile picture, a bug report with a photo of your desk.
• Photos of other people's homes. Their address is theirs to give.

Stop it at the source

On an iPhone, you can keep the place out of new photos: go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services, then Camera, and tap Never. The guide How to turn off the location for the iPhone camera explains what changes. Many people keep the location on, because the map in their own library is useful, and remove it at the moment of sharing. Both ways work. What matters is that you decide, and that the photo does not decide for you.