How to remove location data from a photo before sharing it

Every photo from a phone carries a block of metadata called EXIF. It usually holds where the photo was taken to within a few metres, when, and on which device. Some ways of sharing remove it, others pass it straight through. Here is how to know which, and how to strip it yourself.

What is in the metadata

EXIF is written by the camera into the file itself. For a phone photo it commonly includes GPS latitude and longitude, altitude, the date and time to the second, the phone model and software version, lens and exposure settings, and sometimes a thumbnail of the unedited original. The GPS fields are the sensitive ones: a photo taken at home is a map pin on your house.

When it is removed for you

The large social networks re-encode uploads and drop EXIF in the process. Instagram, Facebook and X do this; the photo people see holds no location. Messaging apps vary. WhatsApp strips metadata from photos sent as photos but keeps it when a file is sent as a document. Email attachments, cloud drive links, AirDrop and plain file transfers keep everything. So the risk is not the public post; it is the file handed directly to someone, or uploaded to a site that does not re-encode.

Removing it in the browser

Raspy never copies metadata into a saved file. Its export is built from the decoded pixels, so the JPEG, PNG or WebP it writes contains image data and nothing else. That makes it a metadata stripper that also happens to be an editor, and it works without sending the photo anywhere, which matters when the whole point is privacy.

1. Open Raspy and choose the photo. HEIC, JPEG, PNG and WebP all work.
2. Make no edits if you want the image unchanged. Or crop, if the background gives away more than the metadata would.
3. Press Save. JPEG at quality 90 keeps the file close to the original in size and appearance. PNG is lossless if you would rather not re-compress at all.
4. Share the saved copy, not the original.

Checking the result

On a Mac, open the saved file in Preview and press Cmd+I; the GPS tab should be absent. On Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties, then Details; the GPS section should be empty. On a phone, the Photos or Gallery app's info panel shows a map when location is present and nothing when it is not.

Stopping it at the source

On an iPhone, the share sheet has an Options link at the top where location can be switched off per share. Settings, Privacy and Security, Location Services, Camera controls whether it is recorded at all. On Android, the Camera app's settings usually have a "save location" toggle. Turning it off means the photo never had the data; the trade is that your own library loses the map view.