How to Remove Location Data From Your iPhone Photos in iOS 1…

When you snap a photo on your iPhone or iPad, iOS automatically uses GPS to record the exact location of the shot. This is an enormous convenience, as it allows you to catalog your many images according to exact location (as well as occasion). It assists in sorting out photo shoots and helps keep track of family and friends over the years.

Most of the time, photo location metadata is welcome. Sometimes, though, it’s not.

When you share a photo with geolocation coordinates tagged in a photo’s EXIF data, viewers can use their Photos app to figure out where the shot was taken. When you’re posting photos to social media, especially on Twitter, you probably don’t want to post a photo that’s too close to home — or in your home — without a way to remove that information and protect your privacy. Even with Facebook, which is famous for tracking you all over the internet, you may not be comfortable posting an image that carries so much precious data.

Removing geolocation data from images in iOS 13

With iOS 13, Apple redoubles its commitment to security and anti-tracking technologies by providing a new way to remove photo location information from any shot before sharing it with someone, or on social media. Now you can remove the location from photos, videos, or multiple images and movies you want to send via Mail, Messages, Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, or any other app. That way, you don’t have to worry about a stranger finding out your location from your iPhone shots. Here’s how to do that.

• Shoot your photo or video as you normally do with the Camera app.
• Find the photo in your albums.
• If you’re just sharing a single image or video, open it, and tap the Share button.
• To share multiple photos and videos, tap Select in the album or section view, tap on all the files you’re sending, and tap the Share button.
• When you’re about to share in the Photos app, observe a new Options button in iOS 13.
• Tap on Options and in the next pane, toggle off Location.
• Then send your photo via any conduit you like. There will now be no way for the viewer to decipher the location where it was shot. Note that the toggle is not historical, but must be reset after each send.

You can only remove the location within the iPhone Photos app, so be sure to share your shots directly from the app. This handy iOS 13 privacy feature is designed only for the photos and videos you share with others. The photos residing on your device retain all their location information — it’s only the ones sent via text, email, or social media that will strip out the location data. The rest of the metadata associated with your image — time, device type, shutter speed, and aperture, remains with your shot.You can see that location data was actually removed in iOS 13. To view where a photo or video was taken, swipe up in the Photos app. If location was enabled when you shot it, a map appears pinpointing it in Places. Turning off the Location using the new iOS 13 feature means that when you share it, that image does not carry the location metadata with it.

Removing Geolocation from photos in iOS 12

Even if you have not yet installed iOS 13, you can still hide your geolocation from images you post to the public. In iOS 12, there are a few ways to strip geotags from photos and videos, but it takes some extra steps and is not as flexible as iOS 13. Here’s how to do it.

Disable Location Services

• Choose Settings from your device’s Home screen.
• Scroll down to find the Privacy selection and tap.
• Tap Location Services.
• Tap Camera.
• Tap Never.

This action prevents the Camera app from recording location information in your shot, so you can’t share what you don’t have. But that method can be inconvenient if you’d like to preserve that metadata for personal use, even if you don’t want to share it.

Using a third-party app

There are a variety of third-party apps that you can use to remove iPhone Camera metadata. Here are a couple of our favorites.

Metapho: Metapho works as an extension option to select any time you choose to share photos. It will show you metadata on the picture – including things like the file size or name, location, and even phone model. Additionally, Metapho offers a function called Safe Share, which will automatically delete location data or other personal information. This feature is wise to use if you plan to share photos with anyone other than yourself or export them over any kind of public network. You can also access the EXIF data on your photos and alter it. You may want to change location information, date and time, etc. With this extension, you can also make changes to multiple metadata simultaneously, save a copy of your file, or replace it with a reversible version – all without leaving the app. 

Exify: Exify ($2) pulls various data from your photos, depending on what you want to see. You can get everything from elevation to location to local time or UTC. You can also add watermarks to your photos, enter GPS information, or delete location data. 

ViewExif: ViewExif ($1) is an app extension that can essentially share your photos without sharing any data that might breach your privacy. You can see and alter location data and the EXIF and IPTC data and delete any metadata you wish to. You can also tag photos with keywords for better search options and add ratings.

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