In the uninstructed former days of smartphone photography on devices with GPS or Wi - Fi - based approximative positioning , Apple and other lock organization maker did n’t imagine about the implication of embedding coordinates in the metadata of the files when it come to divvy up them .

Back in 2010 , Mythbusters ’ and Tested.com’sAdam Savage posted a picture of his car to Twitter , which at the time did n’t scrub geolocation information . dead , people could find oneself out exactly where he lived — and he was n’t technically unworldly .

chirrup and other social meshing got savvier after that and transfer coordinates from picture along with additional identifying metadata , reserving geolocation as something that could be chosen and was clear identified .

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But when you deal an image taken by the Camera app or other computer hardware or software that geotags images and videos via iOS , iPadOS , or macOS , you may inadvertently share that location even if you favor not to . Here ’s how to avoid that .

Photos for iOS and iPadOS

Apple added a way to move out location while sharing double and video two years ago , even though it ’s a little hard to fleck :

In iOS / iPadoS 13 and 14 , Location under Include is enabled by default option ; in current beta version of iOS / iPadOS 15 , it ’s turn off .

Photos for macOS

It ’s not quite so clear how to opt - out of location sharing in Photos for macOS .

you may habituate a global setting that uses oral communication so far out of date you will be forgive for not understanding its purpose . InPhotos > Preferences > General , observe a checkbox at the bottom mark “ Metadata : admit emplacement data for write items . ” This verbal description made more sense when photograph had add - ons that rent you publish directly to Twitter , Facebook , and other service . With Apple ’s transformation to sharing services , you ’d be forgiven for not knowing that “ published item ” means “ token you ’re sharing . ”

Uncheck this box , and geolocation data is move out before an paradigm is share , copied out when you tangle the image from Photos to the Finder or another compatible app , or exported when choosingFile > Export . you’re able to toggle it whenever and as often as you need .

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you may also select one or more images and then chooseImage > Location > enshroud Location , which prevents the locating from appear in Photos and from being included in any sharing or exporting . This preserves the locating , however , so you’re able to restore the geotag by choose the figure and then choosingImage > localisation > Revert to Original Location .

There ’s one more path to suppress location from being include with mass medium . ChooseFile > Export > Export Photoand uncheck the Location Information box . This option is n’t available forFile > Export > Export Unmodified Originalbecause it’s … an unmodified original you ’re exporting !

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