Why I Love Location Data for my Photos but Turn it Off for Everything Else
Have you ever come across a printed photo and on the back it says something like, “Palm Beach Florida, summer 1972”? I digitize a lot of photos for clients and wish that they all had that information! Now that we are in the digital age of always having a camera with us, we can automatically gather that information without any extra effort on our part. Your phone camera will always record the exact time and date. And if you like, it can record where it was taken as well.
Having the location data on your photos makes searching a whole lot easier. The “remember that time we were in New York City and had that great ice cream - what was that place called?” question becomes really easy to answer if you took a photo there - you can then just search your photos for ice cream in New York City and you’ll probably find it. You can also tap on the little thumbnails of photos on a location and see all of the photos that you took there. If you zoom in the location is more accurate, zoom out for an overview.
I took a lot of photos in Iceland! To be fair, these were taken over the course of two trips and include puffins. How could I not take a zillion photos of puffins?
Location data is usually saved with the photo only. If you post that photo to social media the location data is usually stripped (it is for Facebook and Instagram), and if you like you can choose not to send that information via text or email.
Location Data Trick If You Use A Camera Without It
Yellow Warbler map
Not only do I turn on location for photos I take with my phone, I also add location to photos I take with my DSLR camera. I generally only use my DSLR for birding and other wildlife where it is even more important to me to know where the photos were taken. For birds this helps me track when and where I see the different species over the course of years and how this changes year over year. To do this I either take a photo with my phone at the same spot to record the GPS or I collect the data from Google Maps when I get home. I can simply copy and paste the data into the location field. While some newer cameras have GPS built in, my camera is from 2019 and is no longer even on the market.
Adding the location also allows me to see on a map where I have photographed any particular bird. On this map you can see where I have photographed the Yellow Warbler. Fun birding fact: in October 2025 the Yellow Warbler was split into two species, the Northern Yellow Warbler and the Mangrove Yellow Warbler. Both are represented here as the Yellow Warbler as I have not yet updated my own photographs. The photos I took in the Galapagos are actually the Mangrove Yellow Warbler. Because I added the location I can just tap on that bottom group of photos and change the name without doing a lot of searching to make sure I change the correct ones.
Privacy Tradeoff: Why I Turn Off Location Data in (Almost) All Other Apps
While I love location data on my photos, I don’t love the invasion of privacy that comes with allowing my apps to track where I am. Our phones gather an enormous amount of data on everything we do and I hate that. So using location data is one area where I get to choose who sees what. For photos I see more benefit to keeping location data on as I actively use the information myself. But for almost all other apps the risk is too high.
I never add location data to social media posts and rarely post in real-time. I don’t need Facebook, Instagram, or anyone else knowing that I am out of the country (it’s like saying, “come rob my house, I’m not there!”). Nor do I need or want my apps “reminding” me to pick up groceries when I am near the Jewel (a Chicago grocery chain). I don’t think it’s necessary and it provides no value to me.
Location data also allows apps to track you in real time thereby creating a whole history of places you visit, strains your battery life, and allows for targeted ads - none of which I want.
What is the one other app where I keep location on? Maps. It’s awfully hard to get directions without the app knowing where you are. As much as I love paper maps, and I still travel with them on long road trips, using a live map app is necessary. Doubly true if you live in a city like Chicago where you would never want to drive anywhere without real-time traffic data.
If any of this concerns you, check all of your apps. It seems like almost every app is now tracking location but it’s worth going through and turning them all off if they do not provide value to you.