How to Remove Location From HEIC Photos on iPhone, Mac and PC

By the heicjpg.online editorial team · Updated September 30, 2026 · 8 min read

What metadata a HEIC photo holds

Every photo your iPhone saves as HEIC carries an EXIF block next to the image itself. It is invisible when you look at the picture, but any app that reads metadata can show it. A typical iPhone HEIC includes:

• GPS location: latitude, longitude, altitude and often the compass direction the camera faced. Precise enough to point at a single house.
• Date and time: when the shot was taken, including the time zone offset.
• Device: make and model, for example Apple iPhone 16 Pro, plus the iOS version that saved it.
• Lens and exposure: which camera (main, ultra wide, telephoto, front), focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
• Extra images: Portrait mode shots can also store a depth map inside the HEIC container, used to change the background blur later.

So yes, HEIC contains location whenever the Camera app had permission to use Location Services when the photo was taken. The format itself is not the problem; the same GPS fields exist in JPG. If you want the background on the format, see what a HEIC file is.

How to check if a photo has location data

Check before you remove anything, so you know what you are dealing with.

iPhone (Photos app)

Open the photo and swipe up, or tap the info button. If the photo has GPS data, a small map with the place name appears under the camera details. No map means no location is stored. You can also open Collections and the Map collection to see every geotagged photo at once.

Mac (Preview)

Open the HEIC in Preview and choose Tools > Show Location Info. In the Inspector window, the GPS tab shows the coordinates and a map pin. If the menu item is missing or greyed out, the file has no location. The Exif tab next to it lists camera, lens and time.

Windows 11

Right click the file in File Explorer, choose Properties, then open the Details tab. Scroll to the GPS section for Latitude, Longitude and Altitude. For HEIC files Windows needs the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store to read these fields; if the tab looks empty, get HEIC files opening on your PC first or check a JPG copy.

Remove location on iPhone before sharing

This is the fastest fix and it works for Messages, Mail, AirDrop and most apps in the share sheet. According to Apple's personal safety guide (updated September 2026). Apple's iOS 27 iPhone User Guide no longer lists the Location switch under Options, so check what your own iPhone shows:

1. Open Photos and select one or more photos.
2. Tap the Share button.
3. Tap Options near the top of the share sheet.
4. If your iOS version shows a Location switch, turn it off. The line above the Options button then reads Location Not Included. If there is no Location switch, close the sheet, remove the location from the photo first (see Remove location permanently from a photo below) and share again.
5. Pick the app or contact and send.

Three details trip people up:

• Where the switch exists, it applies to that one share only. The next time you share, Location is on again, so check for the Location Not Included label every time.
• All Photos Data (offered for AirDrop) sends the original file with its full metadata. Leave it off when privacy matters.
• The same sheet has a format choice: Automatic, Current or Most Compatible. Most Compatible converts to JPEG, but converting does not drop the location; only the Location switch or No Location does. More on that in converting HEIC to JPG on iPhone.

Remove location permanently from a photo

To strip it from the photo in your library (so every future share is clean), open the photo, tap the More button, tap Adjust Info, then Adjust Location, then No Location. You can do this for a selection of photos too.

Stop your iPhone adding location to new photos

If you never want GPS in your pictures, cut it off at the source. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera and choose Never. From then on, new photos and videos are saved without coordinates.

The trade off: the Photos map, place based Memories and searches like "beach 2025" stop working for new shots. A middle ground many people prefer is to keep location on for your own library and remove it only when sharing, using the steps above. Existing photos keep their location either way; changing the setting only affects what you shoot next.

Also check Precise Location on the same Camera screen. Turning it off stores an approximate area instead of an exact point, which is a reasonable compromise if you like the map but not the precision.

Remove location on a Mac

Preview, one photo at a time

Open the photo, choose Tools > Show Location Info (or Tools > Show Inspector and the info tab), open the GPS tab and click Remove Location Info. Preview rewrites the file in place, so work on a copy if you want to keep the original. It removes GPS only: camera model, lens and time stay. Apple documents the location view in the Preview user guide.

Photos app, many photos at once

Select the photos and choose Image > Location > Hide Location to remove it inside your library. To get clean files out, choose File > Export and untick Location Information in the export options. This is also the easiest way to export JPGs without GPS; see converting HEIC to JPG on a Mac for the format settings.

Remove location on Windows

Windows has a built in cleaner that works best on JPG files:

1. Select one or more photos in File Explorer, right click and choose Properties.
2. Open the Details tab and click Remove Properties and Personal Information at the bottom.
3. Choose Create a copy with all possible properties removed for clean copies, or Remove the following properties from this file and tick the GPS fields.
4. Click OK, then check the Details tab again to confirm the GPS section is gone.

On HEIC files this option is unreliable: depending on the codec installed, the fields may be read only or the dialog may not remove them. The dependable order on a PC is to convert the HEIC to JPG first, then strip the JPG with the steps above, or use ExifTool below, which handles HEIC directly.

Remove GPS from a whole folder with ExifTool

For hundreds of files, a command line is faster than any app. ExifTool is free, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and can write HEIC as well as JPG. This one liner removes GPS from every HEIC and JPG in a folder and its subfolders:

exiftool -gps:all= -xmp:geotag= -r -ext heic -ext jpg -overwrite_original "PATH/TO/FOLDER"

• -gps:all= deletes every EXIF GPS tag; -xmp:geotag= removes GPS copies stored in XMP.
• -r goes into subfolders, -ext limits it to the listed file types.
• -overwrite_original skips the backup copies. Leave it out on your first run and ExifTool keeps each original as IMG_0001.HEIC_original.

To confirm the result, run exiftool -a -G1 -gps:all "PATH/TO/FOLDER". No output means no GPS left. If you want everything gone (camera, time and all), exiftool -all= file.jpg works well on JPG; on HEIC, stripping everything can also remove orientation and color data, so for HEIC stick to the GPS command. For large batches it is often simpler to convert the whole folder to JPG and then run ExifTool on the JPGs.

Where location survives: apps, uploads and conversions

Some services strip GPS when you upload, many do not. Behavior can change with app updates, so treat this as a guide and remove location yourself whenever it matters.

The pattern: social networks clean the public copy because they recompress everything, while anything that moves the original file (messages, email, cloud storage, "send as file") keeps it untouched.

Does converting HEIC to JPG remove metadata?

Usually not. A proper converter copies the EXIF block into the new JPG, because most people want to keep the date and camera details for their archive. That includes GPS.

Our HEIC to JPG converter works the same way: it keeps all EXIF metadata, including the GPS location, and has no option to strip it. That is deliberate, since a converted family archive should still sort by date and show on a map. What a standard JPG cannot hold is the HEIC depth map, so Portrait blur can no longer be edited afterwards; see HEIC vs JPG for what else changes.

Frequently asked questions

Does HEIC contain location data?

Yes, if Location Services was allowed for the Camera app when the photo was taken. The coordinates sit in the EXIF metadata of the HEIC file. Check by swiping up on the photo in the iPhone Photos app: a map means location is stored.

Does converting HEIC to JPG remove metadata?

In most cases no. iPhone's own conversion, Mac Preview and heicjpg.online all copy EXIF, including GPS, into the JPG. Remove location separately, before or after converting.

How do I remove location from a photo on iPhone?

When sharing, tap Options in the share sheet and turn off Location if your iOS version shows it. Otherwise, or to remove it from the photo in your library, tap More, then Adjust Info, Adjust Location, No Location.

Does sending a photo by text or email remove location?

No. iMessage and email send the file as it is, with GPS included, unless you removed it first, either with the Location switch under Options in the share sheet (if your iOS version shows it) or with Adjust Location and No Location. WhatsApp in normal photo mode strips it, but sending as a document keeps it.

Can I remove only the location and keep the date?

Yes. The iPhone No Location option (Adjust Location), the share sheet Location switch where it exists, Mac Preview Remove Location Info, Mac Photos Hide Location and the ExifTool command exiftool -gps:all= file.heic all remove GPS while keeping the date, camera and lens data.

Do screenshots contain location?

No. A screenshot is a new image created by the phone, not by the camera, so it has no GPS coordinates. It also loses quality and the original date, so it is a quick fix rather than a replacement for proper removal.

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