How to remove location and personal data from photos before sharing

What hidden data a photo carries

Cameras and phones save extra information inside each photo, called EXIF metadata. It commonly includes the date and time, the phone or camera model, camera settings and, if location services were on, GPS coordinates accurate to a few metres.

Editing apps can add more, such as software names, author names and descriptions.

When it gets shared

• Many large social networks remove location data from photos when you post them, but they may still keep it themselves.
• Email attachments, files sent through messaging apps as documents, cloud-storage links and many websites and marketplaces pass the original file on unchanged, metadata included.
• If you are not sure how a service handles photos, assume the metadata goes along with the picture.

Remove it with 10MinuteConvert

JPG and PNG photos are cleaned without re-compressing them, so the picture itself is byte-for-byte unchanged and colours stay accurate. Photos that rely on a rotation flag are re-saved at high quality so they stay the right way up.

1. Open Remove photo metadata and add your photos.
2. Press Convert. Each result tells you how much hidden data was removed.
3. Save the cleaned copies and share those instead of the originals.

Prevent it at the source

• iPhone: when sharing from Photos, tap Options at the top of the share sheet and switch Location off. To stop recording location entirely, go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera and choose Never.
• Android: most camera apps have a “Save location” or “Location tags” setting you can switch off. Google Photos can also remove an estimated or recorded location from a photo’s details.