How to Remove GPS Location Data From Photos
Strip the coordinates from photos you already have, and stop new ones being tagged in the first place.
Two separate jobs
Removing location from photos means doing two different things, and doing only one of them is the usual mistake. The first job is cleaning the photos you already have. The second is turning off geotagging so new photos are not tagged at all.
Neither replaces the other: turning off the camera's location access does nothing to the thousands of photos already in your library.
Cleaning photos you already have
In the browser, load the photo into a metadata tool, check the GPS row, remove the metadata and download the clean copy. A good tool shows you the actual coordinates first, which is worth seeing at least once.
On macOS, Preview's Inspector has a GPS tab with a 'Remove Location Info' button. On Windows, the Details tab of a file's Properties has 'Remove Properties and Personal Information'. On the command line, `exiftool -gps:all= photo.jpg` removes the GPS directory and leaves the rest of the EXIF in place.
Stopping new photos being geotagged
On iPhone: Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services, then Camera, and choose Never.
On Android: open the camera app's settings and turn off location tags, or revoke the camera app's location permission under Settings, Apps, Permissions.
On a dedicated camera: most cameras have no GPS at all, but models that pair with a phone app may write coordinates supplied by the phone. Check the connectivity or GPS section of the camera's menu.
The share-sheet shortcut, and its limits
iOS lets you drop location at the moment of sharing: tap Options in the share sheet and turn off Location. Google Photos offers a similar setting for shared links and albums.
These are useful, but they are per-share and easy to forget, and they only remove location — the device model, timestamps and software tags go along as before. If the file is leaving your control entirely, cleaning it properly is the safer habit.
What removing GPS metadata does not do
It removes the coordinates embedded in the file you share. It does not remove location clues visible in the picture, it does not affect copies you already sent, and it does not change what a service records about your upload, such as your IP address.
That is still worth doing. It removes a precise, machine-readable answer to the question 'where was this taken' from a file that had no need to carry it.
Remove GPS location from a photo
If your camera app has location access, your photos carry coordinates. See yours, remove them, and check that no location fields remain.
Open Remove GPS Location From PhotosFrequently asked questions
Do photos taken indoors have GPS data?
Usually yes. Phones fall back to Wi-Fi and cell positioning, so indoor photos are often tagged accurately enough to identify a building.
Does turning off location services remove GPS from old photos?
No. It only affects photos taken afterwards. Existing photos keep the coordinates they were saved with.
Can I remove GPS without losing the rest of the EXIF?
With ExifTool, yes: `exiftool -gps:all=` removes only the GPS directory. Browser tools generally remove all metadata at once.