Most of the time, your iPhone’s ability to save locations alongside the photos you take is a great feature—you can search by cities and countries, create Memories in the Photos app, and more.
But you might not want to include that location data when you’re sharing your photos via iMessage or posting them to social media. Here’s how to remove geotags before you share.
Don't Let Photos Reveal Your Location
When you bring up the share sheet for one or more photos in the Photos app, you’ll see all of the sharing destinations available on your iPhone: AirDrop, iMessage contacts, social media apps, and more.
Unless you tell it not to, the Photos app will send location data along with any photos and videos that contain it. You might want to share geotagged photos with a family member who’s in them, but you probably don’t want to broadcast that kind of information to all your social media followers.
You can manage the location settings on your iPhone so the Camera app can’t add geotags to future photos. But that also takes away the features that are available when your iPhone has that data—like iPhone Memories slideshows and search.
Instead, use the share sheet to remove the location from each photo as you share it.
How to Remove a Photo’s Location Data From the iPhone Share Sheet
At the top of the share sheet, find the bold text showing the number of photos and videos selected. Right beneath it, if the item you’re sharing contains location data, you’ll see one of the following labels displayed next to the Options button:
- A place name (for example, Brooklyn)
- Locations Included
- No Location
- Or nothing, just the Options button
If the item doesn’t contain any location data, there’s nothing further to do. But if it does, follow these steps to remove it:
- Tap Options to configure which metadata you’d like to include in the shared photo.
- Look for the second section of options, labeled Include. There, turn off the Location toggle.
That’s it! Now you can go back and share your photos safely.
It’s important to remember that the Photos app only removes the geotag from the copies of the photos it’s sending; it doesn’t erase the location from the original photos stored on your iPhone. If you share the same photos later, you’ll have to disable the Location toggle again.
Sharing Individual Photos
As soon as you turn off the Location toggle, you’ll notice that the Automatic option at the top changes to Individual Photo. That’s because sharing photos as an iCloud link requires the photos’ location data.
Individual files are normally fine for sending a few photos, while iCloud links are usually better for sharing multiple large photos or videos. However, there’s no way to disable the Location option when sharing via an iCloud link.
Unfortunately, this means you’ll have to share sets of photos as individual items if you want to remove their location data.
Sharing via AirDrop
When sharing with AirDrop, you have the additional option to include All Photos Data. This includes the full quality photo and all metadata, including the photo’s location, edit history, and caption.
The recipient can dive into any edits you made to the photo and make their own changes or revisions. With this option enabled, you can’t turn off the Location toggle.
Take Control of the Photo Data You Share
Whether you’re sharing to a group of friends in iMessage or to social media, make sure you know how much data your iPhone is sending alongside your photos and videos. Then you can use the Photos app to make sure your photos look their best by applying the perfect filter.
