How to Remove EXIF Data and Location From Photos on Mac

Check if a photo has a location

1. Open the photo in Preview.
2. Select Tools, then Show Location Info.

If Show Location Info is grayed out, the photo has no location information. If the photo has one, Preview shows a GPS section with a pin on a world map. This check is described in the Apple Preview User Guide.

Method 1: Remove the location in Preview

1. Open the photo in Preview.
2. Select Tools, then Show Inspector. You can also press Cmd+I.
3. Open the More Info tab (the i icon).
4. Open the GPS tab.
5. Click Remove Location Info.
6. Save the file with Cmd+S.

This removes the GPS location only. The camera details, the date and other fields stay in the file. It changes the file that you save, so work on a copy if you want to keep the original.

Apple documents how to see the location in Preview, but we found no Apple page that describes how to remove it. These steps come from write-ups in 2015 and 2026 that agree with each other. Open the Inspector again after you save to check the result.

Method 2: Hide the location in the Photos app

1. Open Photos and select the photos.
2. Select Image, then Location, then Hide Location.

Use Revert to Original Location in the same menu to undo this. Apple does not say whether Photos rewrites the file inside its library, so this does not give you a clean file. Use Method 3 or Method 4 for the files that you send.

Method 3: Leave out the location when you export from Photos

1. Open Photos and select Photos, then Settings.
2. Open the General tab.
3. Under Sharing, turn off Include location information.

Photos then leaves out the location of photos taken by a GPS-enabled camera, including an iPhone, when you share or export them. It does not remove the camera details and the date. Export Unmodified Original gives you the original file, so use the normal export for photos that you share.

Method 4: Remove all metadata with WipePic

1. Open WipePic in your browser.
2. Drag your photos into the page, or select them with the file picker.
3. WipePic shows what it found in each photo, for example the location, the device and the capture time.
4. Download the cleaned copies.

WipePic removes the location, the device details, the capture time, the author and rights fields, the editing history, comments, thumbnails and embedded C2PA data. It keeps the orientation and the colour profile, so the photo displays correctly. The photos stay on your Mac. WipePic does not send them to a server. Your original files do not change.

WipePic reads JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, GIF, TIFF and DNG files. It cleans up to 300 files in one batch, and each file can be up to 50 MB. It does not remove the contents of the picture itself, such as a visible street sign or a face.

What the built-in tools cannot do

• Apple documents no way to remove all metadata in Preview or Photos. Only the location is covered. This is based on what the Apple pages describe, so check your own files.
• The Preview method applies only to the file that you save.
• The Photos methods change what Photos stores or shares. They do not clean a file that you copy from somewhere else.

Stop new photos from saving the location

For photos from an iPhone, open Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services, then Camera, and select Never. See the iPhone guide for the details. Photos that you took before this change still have their location.

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-06.

• Apple: See where a photo was taken using Preview on Mac
• Apple: Manage location metadata in Photos
• Apple: Photos settings, General (Sharing)
• PetaPixel: Remove geotag data using Preview on Mac (2015-01-24)
• Digitash: Remove location data with Preview (2026-09-04)