How to check & remove GPS location from your photos
Every photo from a phone quietly records when it was taken, on what device — and, if location was on, precisely where, down to a few meters. Sell something online with a photo taken at home, and the listing may include your address. Here's how to check, and how to strip it without touching the pixels.
Step by step
- Drop your photos into the tool. Each photo is scanned on your device and its hidden metadata listed: camera model, capture time, editing software — and GPS coordinates, flagged in red if present. (Uploading photos somewhere to check their location data would defeat the purpose; here they never leave.)
- Review what each photo reveals. The GPS line shows the actual coordinates. Paste them into any map app if you want to see just how precise the leak is — it's usually your doorstep.
- Keep the rotation fix ticked. Some photos rely on a “rotate me” flag inside the metadata. The tool bakes the rotation into the pixels for exactly those photos so nothing displays sideways after cleaning.
- Remove & download. JPG and PNG files are cleaned losslessly — the metadata blocks are removed byte-exactly and the image data is untouched. Several photos come back as a ZIP.
Worth knowing
Prevention beats cleanup: most phones let you disable location for the camera app specifically (iOS: Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Camera → Never. Android: Camera app settings → Save location → off). Keep it on for travel photos, off for photos of things you sell.
Frequently asked questions
Don't WhatsApp and Instagram strip this automatically?
On public display, mostly yes. But sending a photo as a file or “document”, cloud-drive links, email attachments and many marketplaces preserve the original — with coordinates inside.
Does removing EXIF reduce image quality?
Not here. For JPG and PNG the metadata segments are cut out of the file byte-exactly; every pixel stays identical. Only exotic formats fall back to re-encoding.