Remove location and camera details from a photo before uploading

What a photo can carry

Photos can hold extra details in a format called Exif. The Exif standard, published by the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), has places for details such as:

• the maker and model of the camera or phone
• the date and time the picture was taken
• the latitude and longitude where it was taken
• the serial numbers of the camera body and lens

Not every photo has all of these. But if a photo does have a location, anyone who gets the file may be able to see it. As Apple puts it, the people you share such photos with “may be able to access the location metadata and learn where it was taken”.

Remove the details with Make My File Fit

Every copy the Make My File Fit Image tool makes leaves out location and camera details. This works for the still JPG, PNG and WebP images the tool can open, and the photo stays the right way up.

You don’t have to shrink your photo to get a clean copy. If your file is already under the limit you set, the tool keeps the picture exactly as it is, with no quality lost. It only removes the details, and keeps the colour profile and the rotation, so the photo looks the same and isn’t turned sideways.

1. Open the Image tool and choose your photo.
2. Set the limit your form asks for. If your photo is already under it, the tool says “Your file already fits”.
3. Read what the tool tells you. If it found location or camera details, it says it removed them. If there was nothing to remove, it says the copy is identical to your original.
4. Download the copy, and upload the copy rather than your original.

If your photo is over the limit, the tool makes a smaller copy, and that copy leaves out the details too. The result lists “location and camera details removed” when there were some.

Note: Your photo is processed in your browser tab. It isn’t uploaded to us, and your original file isn’t changed.

On an iPhone

Apple’s personal safety guide gives three ways to deal with location in photos:

• Leave it out when you share. Select the photos in Photos, tap the Share button, then tap Options and turn off Location. “Location Not Included” then shows above the Options button.
• Remove it from one photo. Open the photo in Photos, tap the More button, then tap Adjust Info, Adjust Location and No Location.
• Stop saving it. Go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services › Camera, then tap Never. Apple says location can only be saved in photos if the Camera app has access to Location Services.

Stopping it only affects new photos. Photos you have already taken keep their location until you remove it.

On Android

Google’s Photos help explains how to stop the camera saving a location. On Google phones, open the camera’s settings and turn off “Save location”. Other makers name it differently. On Samsung phones, for example, it is “Location tags”.

For photos you already took, Google Photos has a limit. Google Photos help says you can only change or remove locations that Google Photos estimated or that you added yourself. A location your camera added can’t be removed in Google Photos.

Google also says that when you download a photo and share it outside Google Photos, for example by email, it shows the original location your device saved. So for a photo you want to upload, making a copy without the details is the more reliable route.

Before you upload

• Upload the copy, not the original. Your original still has its details, because the tool never changes it.
• Check the result. The tool only says it removed location and camera details when the photo had some.
• Keep in mind that the picture itself can give things away, such as a street sign or a house number. Removing hidden details doesn’t change what the photo shows.

If the form also has a size limit, the same copy can do both jobs. See “File too large” when uploading if the form refuses it.