How to remove the location from a photo before you share it

What a holiday photo gives away

Apple puts the condition plainly: photos and videos can only collect location data if the Camera app has access to Location Services. Most phones ask for that permission the first time you open the camera, and most people say yes, because it is what puts the trip on a map in the gallery. To see what a photo holds on an iPhone, open it and swipe up or tap the Info button.

On a trip, that detail matters more than usual. A picture of the rental flat's balcony, posted while you are still there, can point to the building. A photo of the kids outside the hotel says which hotel. Removing the location does not make a photo anonymous, though. Google warns in its Photos help that people can still guess where a picture was taken from landmarks in it, so the street sign behind you is worth a look too.

iPhone: the switch is in the share screen

Apple's steps are short. Select the photos in the Photos app, tap the Share button, tap Options at the top and turn off Location. Above the Options button you will see Location Not Included. Then choose how to send them, whether that is Messages, Mail, AirDrop or another app.

The setting lives in that share screen, not in Settings, so it is worth glancing at the top of the screen each time you share something from the trip. It also leaves your own copy untouched: the photo in your library keeps its place on the map. If you want the location gone from the photo itself, Apple's route is to open it, tap the More button, then Adjust Info, Adjust Location and No Location.

To stop new photos from recording location at all, Apple points to Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera, Never. The price is that the trip's photos will no longer appear on the map.

Samsung Galaxy: one tick before you pick the app

Samsung's Gallery app has its own option. Long-press a photo to select it, tap any others you want to send, tap the Share icon and tick Remove location data before choosing the app. Samsung says the person who receives the photos then cannot see where they were taken. Its guide applies to Galaxy phones from One UI 3.0 onwards.

If you would rather new photos had no location from the start, the Camera app is the place to change it. On a Google Pixel, Google's steps are to open Camera, tap Settings at the bottom left, then More settings, and turn off Save location. On other Android phones, look for a similar switch in the camera's settings, or remove the camera's location permission in the phone's app settings.

As with the iPhone, the trade-off is the map: photos taken with the setting off have no place to show.

Google Photos: it depends on how you share

Google Photos treats each way of sharing differently, and its help page sets out the rules. In a shared album, open the album, tap Share, then Options, and turn Share photo locations on or off. In conversations inside Google Photos, locations are not shared by default. With partner sharing, all the photos you share have location details.

There is one limit that surprises people. Google says that if the location was added automatically by your camera, you cannot update or remove it in Google Photos; you can only edit locations that Photos estimated or that you added by hand. And when you download a photo and send it somewhere else, it keeps the location your device saved. So on an Android phone, the reliable fix is in the gallery's share option or in the camera, not in Google Photos afterwards.

Social networks and apps: assume the data arrives

Few services say clearly what they do with a photo's location once you upload it. Meta does say what it collects. Its privacy policy, which covers Facebook and Instagram, lists metadata about the content you provide, such as the location where a photo was taken. It does not say that the location is shown to other people, but it does say the company receives it. Other networks and messaging apps do not document it in the same way, so the sensible approach is to remove the location before uploading rather than counting on the platform.

Android offers some protection in one specific case. According to Android's developer documentation, when an app opens your photos through the system photo picker, location metadata is removed by default unless the app requests it and you allow it. That covers apps picking a photo, not a file you send yourself from the gallery.

If you want people to know where you are

Sometimes the point of a holiday photo is to tell family that you have arrived. Sharing your live location on purpose, with a few people and for a set time, is a cleaner way to do that than leaving coordinates in every picture; our guide to sharing your location while travelling covers the options on each phone.

Sending photos also uses data. A handful of pictures in a chat is light, but automatic backups of a day of video are not, so check how to stop photo backup using mobile data before you leave. With a data-only eSIM such as the ones Snoozim sells, the photos you share go over the travel plan and WhatsApp keeps working with your usual number.