Add to Chrome

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

By the Docmend team · Updated · 7 min read

Short answer

Turn the location off as you share. On an iPhone, tap Share, then Options, and turn off Location. In Samsung Gallery, tick Remove Location data. On any device, Docmend’s free Remove photo info tool removes the location, phone model and date in your browser. Google Photos can’t remove a location your camera added.

Docmend (docmend.app), a Chrome extension and free document tools site, makes the Remove photo info tool used below. Most phone photos quietly record where they were taken. That’s handy for your own albums and risky when you post a photo of your front door, send one to a buyer you’ve never met, or share pictures of your children. This guide covers how to check a photo, how to remove the location on each kind of phone and on a Mac, and how to make sure it worked. Every phone step comes from Apple’s, Google’s or Samsung’s own help pages, checked on 2026-10-19.

What your photo gives away

Apple’s Manage location metadata in Photos page explains that when the Camera app can use Location Services, it embeds the location coordinates where each photo or video is taken. When you share those photos, the people you share them with may be able to see the location and learn where the photo was taken.

The location sits in the photo’s EXIF data. Docmend’s Remove photo info page describes EXIF as hidden details a camera or phone writes into a photo: GPS location, date and time, camera make and model, and settings. To remove EXIF data from an image, not just the location, use the browser method below.

Check whether a photo has a location

If you see a map or a place name, the location is in the file and will travel with it.

iPhone and iPad

Leave the location out of one share. Apple’s steps: open the Photos app (or the camera roll from the Camera app), select one or more photos, tap the Share button, tap Options and turn off Location. Apple says “Location Not Included” then appears above the Options button. Share the photos as usual from the Share Sheet.

Remove it from the photo itself. Open the photo in Photos, tap the Info button, then tap Adjust Info, Adjust Location and No Location.

Samsung Galaxy

When you share. Samsung’s Removing Location Data from Photos in the Gallery guide (written for One UI 3.0 or later): open Gallery, long press a photo and tap any others you want to send, tap Share, tick Remove Location data, then choose the app to share with.

From the photo itself. Samsung’s Gallery app guide: select the photo, tap More options, then Details, tap Edit, tap the red minus sign next to the location information and tap Save.

Pixel and other Android phones

If your photos are in Google Photos, there’s a catch. Google’s help page Understand, find & edit your photos’ locations says you can only change or remove locations that Google Photos estimated or that you added yourself. If your camera added the location, you can’t update or remove it in Google Photos. The same page says that when you download a photo and email it to someone, the original location your device saved goes with it.

For a camera-added location, use the browser method below on a copy of the photo before you send it.

Mac

In the Photos app, select the photos, then choose Image → Location → Hide Location. Apple lists this as the way to remove location metadata in Photos on a Mac; Revert to Original Location in the same menu brings it back.

Any phone or computer: remove it in your browser

Docmend’s Remove photo info tool runs on docmend.app in any browser, including Windows, Android and Chromebook browsers. The steps on the tool page are:

  1. Choose one or more photos.
  2. Click Remove info (the button shows how many photos, for example “Remove info from 1 photo”).
  3. Share the cleaned copies.

The page says it removes where a photo was taken, the phone model and the date, and that JPG photos are not re-saved, so the picture stays exactly the same. It also says Docmend works on the picture inside your browser, so it never leaves your phone or computer. The page doesn’t show a preview of the hidden info, so check the cleaned copy with the steps below.

Check it worked

Open the cleaned copy, not the original, and repeat the check above. The map or place name should be gone. On an iPhone, look for “Location Not Included” above Options before you tap a sharing app. Samsung says that when you tick Remove Location data, the person who receives the photo can’t see where it was taken when they swipe up on it.

What removing the location doesn’t fix

The file no longer says where you were, but the picture still might. Google’s help page warns that people can guess a location from landmarks in a photo. House numbers, street signs, a car number plate or a school badge can give away just as much. Docmend’s Blur image tool hides faces, number plates, addresses, and card and phone numbers. Its page says the hidden parts are replaced in the saved picture, not covered by a layer, and that a black box is the safest choice for very sensitive details. Check the file name too: a name that mentions a street or a town travels with the photo.

When not to remove it

Worked example

On 19 October 2026 we ran the live Remove photo info tool in Chromium with its default settings, and re-ran it in Chrome 155 with the same result. Our test file, test-photo-with-location.jpg, is a made-up graphic we created for testing, not a real photo. We added GPS coordinates for the Eiffel Tower, the camera make “DocmendTest”, the model “Test Phone 1” and a date. The page showed it as 331 KB (339,278 bytes), 1600 × 1200 px. It showed no preview of the hidden info and no options, just a button reading Remove info from 1 photo.

Note the new file name: it keeps the original name and adds “(no info)”, so rename it if the name gives away a place. Results vary with real photos.

Common questions

Does removing the location change the photo?

Not with Docmend’s Remove photo info tool for JPGs. Its page says JPG photos are not re-saved, so the picture is exactly the same. A photo that relies on a “turn this” note is saved the right way up instead. In our test with a JPG, the decoded pixels of the cleaned copy were identical to the original’s.

Does Google Photos remove the location when I share?

Not always. Google says that if your camera added the location and you share the photo on Google Photos, the photo shows that location. You can control whether locations are shared in each shared album, link or conversation, and a photo you download and email keeps the original location your device saved.

How can I see a photo’s EXIF data?

On an iPhone or iPad, open the photo in Photos and swipe up or tap the Info button. On a Mac, select it in Photos and click the Info button. On a Samsung Galaxy, open it in Gallery and tap More options, then Details. EXIF is where the location, date, time and camera model are stored.

Do the date and phone model stay in the photo?

Apple’s page describes the iPhone share option as turning off Location; it doesn’t say what else is removed. Docmend’s Remove photo info page says it removes the location, the phone model and the date. In our test it reported “Removed: location, camera make and model, date taken”, and our check found none of them left.

How do I stop my phone adding the location to new photos?

On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera, and tap Never. On a Pixel, open the Camera app, tap Settings, then More settings, and turn off Save location. On a Samsung Galaxy, Google’s camera location help page says to open the camera’s settings and turn off Location tags.

Sources

Related guides