Published October 20, 2026
Every photo your iPhone takes can carry the spot where it was taken. That’s what puts your photos on a map and lets you search “Sedona” and find them. But when you share a photo, the people you send it to may be able to see that place too: your home, your kid’s school, the trailhead you’d rather keep to yourself. Here are three ways to control it in iOS 27, from lightest to heaviest, and what each one costs you.
This is the one most people want. The photo in your library stays exactly as it is; the copy you send carries no place.
The setting applies to that share only, so check Options each time. For AirDrop and Shared Albums, also leave All Photos Data off: with it on, the original file goes with its metadata, location included.
Use this for a photo you never want tied to a place, even in your own library.
Without a location, Photos can no longer put the photo on its map. If the location is simply wrong, the same screen lets you search for the right place instead (more on fixing a photo’s location).
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera. You have three choices:
There’s a middle path on the same screen: turn off Precise Location, and Camera can only determine your approximate location.
Photos you already have keep their locations; this setting only changes new ones. The cost is that new photos without a location won’t land on the map, though you can add a place by hand later with Adjust.
For most people, the first. Your library keeps its places, so your photos stay mapped and searchable, and what you send carries none. Remove a location from a photo when the place itself is the secret. Turn location off in Camera only if you’d rather your photos never know where they were taken.
We’re building EverMap to turn the places already in your photo library into a map of where you’ve been, and you can ask Scout about your travels. That’s one more reason to take location off what you share rather than out of your library. In EverMap’s current build, photos with no location don’t appear in EverMap, and if you remove a location in Photos after EverMap has added the photo, EverMap keeps the place it already recorded, on your device and in your own iCloud. The AI runs on-device, there are no third-party SDKs and no trackers, and your originals stay in Photos. It isn’t out yet — join the waitlist to hear when it launches.
How do I send a photo without its location on iPhone? Tap Share, tap Options, and under Include turn off Location.
Does the share-sheet toggle change the original photo? No. It only affects the copy you send. Adjust > No Location is what removes the place from the photo in your library.
If I turn off location for Camera, do old photos lose theirs? No. The setting only affects photos taken after you change it.
Does EverMap work with photos that have no location? Not in its current build. EverMap maps photos by the location already in your library, so a photo without one doesn’t appear.