To share a photo without its location on iPhone, open it in Photos, tap the Share button, tap Options at the top of the share sheet, and turn off Location. "Location Not Included" appears above Options, and the copy you send carries no place. Your own photo keeps its location, so it stays on your map.
That's the right choice for most people. If you'd rather remove the location for good, or stop the Camera recording it at all, both are covered below, along with what you give up.
Share one photo (or a batch) without its location
- Open the Photos app and open the photo, or tap Select and choose several.
- Tap the Share button.
- Tap Options at the top of the share sheet.
- Turn off Location.
- Check that the share sheet now says Location Not Included, then send as usual: Messages, Mail, AirDrop or another app.
This is how Apple's guide describes it for iOS 18 and iOS 26. Apple moves things between versions, so if you don't see a Location switch under Options, look for it elsewhere in the share sheet, or use one of the methods below. Check Options each time you share. Don't assume a choice you made last week still applies.
Why it matters
Apple's own note is short: sharing a photo or video shares its metadata, such as the date and time, the location, the device and captions. A holiday photo from Santorini giving away Santorini is harmless. The risky ones are the everyday shots:
- Photos taken at home, whose location can point straight to your address.
- Photos of your children at their school or a regular club.
- Photos sent to people you've just met, or posted for sale online. A listing photo of a bike taken in your hallway does the same job as your address.
The location isn't the one clue that matters. A street sign, a house number or the view from a window can give away as much. Look at the picture as well as the settings.
Remove the location from the photo itself
If a photo should never carry a place, even in your own library, remove it:
- Open the photo in Photos.
- Tap the More button, then Adjust Info, then Adjust Location.
- Choose No Location.
That's the path in Apple's Personal Safety guide. The photo disappears from your Photos map, and every future share goes without a location. If you change your mind, the same menu has Revert, which brings back the location it was taken with. How to add or change a photo's location covers that menu in full.
Stop the Camera saving locations at all
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera and choose Never. New photos and videos are saved with no place.
Think twice before doing this as a traveler. Without locations, your photos drop off the map in Photos, trips stop grouping themselves, and years from now you won't be able to tell which beach was which. Most people are better off leaving it on and stripping the location when they share. How to make your iPhone save where each photo was taken explains the options if you want the middle ground.
Which ways of sharing keep the location?
- AirDrop, Messages and Mail send the photo with its location unless you turn it off in Options.
- All Photos Data (an option for AirDrop) sends the original file with its full metadata and edit history. Leave it off when sending to someone you don't know well.
- Social networks and messaging apps often strip location as they upload. But apps change, and some show a place you tag yourself, so don't rely on the app. Strip it before you share.
Wondering what a photo will give away? Swipe up on it. If there's a map, there's a location. How to see where a photo was taken shows what's in that panel.
Sharing a travel map instead of photos
A map of the countries you've been to is a safer thing to post than a run of geotagged photos. It shows where you've been, not where you live. Two things to check before you share one: that it doesn't zoom into your home town, and that a "places I've lived" layer isn't on. Globestamp, for one, never shows your home. Our guide to sharing your travel map on Instagram covers the rest.
It's worth asking the same question of any travel app: where does your location history go? Why a travel tracker without an account is worth looking for goes into that.