If your phone or camera has a GPS chip and is tracking your location, it gets captured invisibly on the photo as well. This is great if you want to look back at all the photos you’ve taken in New York City or at Lizard Point, but not so good if you’re sharing photos of your pets and don’t want to reveal your home address as well.
Whenever a photo goes beyond just your audience, it’s important to think about the metadata associated with it – and if necessary, you should remove the location stamp.
How to view photo metadata
Photo metadata can be useful in many ways, and this also includes location tags. For example, both Google Photos and Apple Photos can sort your photo library by where the pictures were taken. Just try searching for a place you’ve recently visited in any of these apps to see the results.
There are several ways to view the metadata stored with a photo. In Google Photos for Android, tap a picture to open it, then tap the three dots (top right) and select About this. If location information is attached, you will see the photo placed on the map. With Google Photos on the web, once you open an image you can see the same metadata by clicking the Info button (the small “i” in a circle) in the top right corner.
On iOS you can use Apple Photos to find photo metadata by opening an image, then tapping the Info button (small circle “i”) at the bottom. Then, your photo will be shown on a miniature map if location information is attached. If you’re using Apple Photos on the web, double-click an image to open it, and the Info button is in the upper right corner.
This data can also be found in Windows and macOS, although you only get GPS coordinates instead of a nice formatted map. On Windows, right-click an image in File Explorer, choose Propertyand then open Description tab; On macOS, right-click an image in Finder, choose get infoAnd if GPS coordinates are attached you will see them in a pop-up dialog.
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