How to Turn Off Location Tagging in the Android Camera

To turn off location in the Android camera, open the camera app's settings and switch off the location option: it is called Save location on Google Pixel phones and Location tags on Samsung Galaxy phones. On any Android phone you can also go to the camera app's permissions and set Location to Don't allow. New photos will then have no GPS coordinates, but photos you already took keep theirs.

Because Android phones come from many manufacturers, the exact wording changes from brand to brand. This guide gives the path for the most common phones, a universal method that works everywhere, and the steps to deal with the photos already on your phone.

Turn off location on a Google Pixel camera

The Pixel Camera app has its own switch for geotagging:

1. Open the Camera app.
2. Open the camera settings (tap the settings icon in the camera interface).
3. Tap More settings.
4. Turn off Save location.

This is the setting described in Google's help page on camera location settings. Menu positions move between Pixel Camera versions, so if you do not see it right away, look for "location" anywhere in the camera's settings.

Turn off location tags on a Samsung Galaxy camera

On Samsung phones running One UI:

1. Open the Camera app.
2. Tap the Settings gear icon.
3. Scroll down to the general settings and turn off Location tags.

Samsung also has two Gallery features that matter for existing photos and sharing; they are covered further down.

The setting name on other Android brands

Google's help page lists the name of the location option in the camera settings of other manufacturers. Use this as a starting point; the wording can change with software updates.

The universal method: remove the camera's location permission

If you cannot find the switch, or you use a third-party camera app, take away the app's access to your location. A camera app that cannot read your position cannot write it into photos.

1. Open Settings > Apps (called Apps & notifications on some older versions).
2. Find and tap your camera app. You may need to tap See all apps first.
3. Tap Permissions > Location.
4. Choose Don't allow.

The same screen offers Ask every time and, on Android 12 and later, a Use precise location switch. Turning off precise location while still allowing access gives photos a rough area instead of an exact spot. That is better than precise coordinates, but it can still reveal your town or neighborhood, so it is a compromise rather than a privacy fix.

Turn it off, or keep it and clean on share?

Turning off camera location is not the only sensible choice. Geotags are genuinely useful in your own library: they let Google Photos or Samsung Gallery group pictures by trip, show them on a map and answer searches like "photos from Rome". Once a photo is taken without location, that information is gone for good.

A practical way to decide:

• Turn it off if you rarely look at the map view, if you often photograph things at home to send to others (listings, repairs, documents), or if other people regularly use your phone to take and send photos. The safest default is the one you do not have to remember.
• Keep it on if your photo map matters to you and you are disciplined about cleaning files before they leave your phone. In that case, the share-time options and a metadata remover below are your safety net.
• Use approximate location if you only want a rough record of which city you were in. It reduces precision but does not remove the location.

Whichever you choose, take one test photo afterward and open its details. If you turned location off and a place still appears, check which app took the photo and whether the place is only a Google Photos estimate.

What turning off camera location does not change

• Old photos are still geotagged. Everything you shot while the setting was on still has GPSLatitude and GPSLongitude in its EXIF data.
• Other metadata remains. New photos still record the date and time, the phone's make and model (Make, Model), camera settings and often the software version.
• Google Photos may still show a place. Google Photos can estimate a location from landmarks and similar photos. According to Google's explanation of how Photos protects location data, these estimated locations are never shared. They live in your account, not in the file.
• The image content is unchanged. Street signs, house numbers or a recognizable skyline still give places away.

Remove location from photos you already took

In Google Photos

Google Photos lets you edit or remove a location you added manually or one it estimated. However, its help page states that locations saved automatically by your camera cannot be changed or removed in Google Photos. For camera-written GPS data, you need another tool.

In Samsung Gallery

Samsung Gallery can remove the location from the file itself:

1. Open the photo in Gallery.
2. Swipe up or tap the Details (info) button.
3. Tap Edit.
4. Remove the location entry and tap Save.

On any phone, with a browser

The most consistent way is to clean the files before sharing them. In Chrome, open our free metadata remover, select up to 10 JPEG, PNG or WebP photos and download the cleaned copies. It removes GPS along with the rest of the EXIF, XMP and IPTC data without re-encoding the image, and shows a report of what it found. Your originals in the gallery stay as they were, which is useful if you want to keep the location for yourself. Our guide to removing EXIF data on Android covers more options, including file managers and apps.

Remove location when you share

Samsung: "Remove location data" in the share sheet

Since One UI 3.1, Samsung Gallery shows a Remove location data option when you share photos. Select the photos, tap Share, tick the option in the preview area, then choose the app. It removes only the location; the date, device model and other metadata are left in place.

Google Photos sharing

Inside Google Photos, location is private by default for shared albums, links and conversations: you have to choose to include it (in a shared album, for example, through the Share photo locations option). Two exceptions to keep in mind, according to Google's help on photo locations: partner sharing includes location details, and anything you share outside Google Photos, such as a downloaded file sent by email, includes the original location saved by your device.

Apps that use the Android photo picker

On Android 10 and later, apps need a specific permission to read the location stored in your photos, and the system photo picker has historically handed apps your photos with the location removed. Newer Android versions may instead ask whether to include location info. This is a helpful safety net, but it only applies when an app uses those system paths. Files sent through a file manager, a USB cable, a cloud folder or as email attachments are passed on as they are.

Your Android camera location checklist

1. Turn off Save location, Location tags or your brand's equivalent in the camera settings, or set the camera app's Location permission to Don't allow.
2. Check the Location permission of every other app you take photos with.
3. Take a test photo and open its details: no place should appear (apart from a possible Google Photos estimate).
4. For older photos, remove location in Samsung Gallery or clean copies with a metadata remover before sharing; Google Photos cannot remove camera-saved GPS.
5. When sharing, use Samsung's Remove location data option where available, and leave location sharing off in Google Photos albums.
6. For anything public, strip all metadata and look for visible clues in the picture. If you also use an iPhone, see how to stop the iPhone saving location in photos, and for the general method on any device, how to remove GPS location from photos before sharing.