How to Stop Your Camera From Saving Location

Why the camera saves a location

When the Camera app has access to your location, it writes the GPS coordinates of each photo into the file. Apple says that the Camera uses cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth information to find the coordinates, and that they are embedded in each photo and video. When you share the original file, the person who gets it may be able to read where you took it.

You can turn this off for the camera. The steps below come from Apple, Google and Samsung help pages. Menu names can differ by model and software version.

iPhone and iPad

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Privacy & Security, then Location Services.
3. Tap Camera.
4. Tap Never.

Apple says that location metadata in photos and videos can be collected only if the Camera app has access to Location Services. To turn it back on, set Camera to While Using the App.

Samsung Galaxy

1. Open the Camera app.
2. Tap the Settings icon.
3. Turn off Location tags.

Samsung lists Location tags in the General part of the Camera settings. More steps are in our guide for Samsung phones.

Google Pixel

1. Open the Camera app.
2. At the bottom left, tap Settings, then More settings.
3. Turn off Save location.

The Pixel Camera Help page calls this setting a location stamp for photos and videos.

Other Android phones

Open the settings of your camera and look for one of these names. Google lists them in its Google Photos Help.

Google also lists Fujitsu, Kyocera, Nokia, Sharp and ZTE phones. The names are in the Google Photos Help page below.

Other apps that take photos

The steps above are for the camera that came with your phone. A third-party camera app, or a camera inside another app, has its own settings and its own permission to use your location. On iPhone, the Location Services screen lists the apps that asked for your location. On Android, look at the location permission of each app that takes photos. Turn it off for apps that do not need it.

Check that it worked

1. Take a new photo and send it to yourself as a file, or copy it to a computer.
2. Open it in the WipePic location check. If the photo has GPS data, the tool shows a dot on a small map.
3. If you see a dot, check the setting again and check that no other camera app takes the photo.

Remove the location from photos that you already took

This setting does not touch old photos. Open WipePic in your browser, add the photos and select Remove Metadata. WipePic removes the GPS location, the device details, the date and time and other hidden data. It does not re-encode the photo, so the pixels do not change, and it does not upload your photos. See also how to remove the location from a photo.

If you want to keep the location on your phone

You can leave the camera setting on and remove the location only when you share a photo.

• iPhone: tap Share, then Options, and turn off Location. Apple says that Location Not Included then shows above the Options button.
• Samsung Gallery: tap Share and tick Remove location data.

These options apply to the photos that you share from the phone. A copy that you already sent, or the original file that you back up, keeps the location. A clean file is the safest thing to hand over. WipePic cleans up to 300 files in one batch.

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-08.

• Apple Personal Safety User Guide: Manage location metadata in Photos
• Google Photos Help: Change your camera location settings
• Pixel Camera Help: Change your Camera app settings
• Samsung: Camera modes and settings on Galaxy phones and tablets