Your phone's videos carry your location too

Published October 27, 2026

Yes, videos record where they were taken, just like photos. A video shot on a recent iPhone with location services on stores its GPS coordinates inside the file, along with the phone's make and model, the camera software version and lens details. When you send that file, the location goes with it unless you switch it off. Most advice about removing location covers photos only, so this post covers videos: what is in one, how to share without the location, and what we changed in WholeFamily.

What we found inside one iPhone video

In October 2026 one of us recorded a short clip on an iPhone, with location services on for the Camera, and took the file apart with standard tools (ExifTool and FFmpeg). Besides the video and two audio tracks, the file contained:

• GPS coordinates, stored twice (as GPSCoordinates and a localized copy), to four decimal places, which is roughly 11 meters.
• The make, model and software version of the phone.
• The lens model and aperture, plus two blocks of Apple's maker notes.
• Six timed metadata tracks: hidden data streams that the camera writes alongside the picture and sound.
• The recording date and time.

None of that is visible when you play the video. All of it travels with the file when you text it, email it, or upload it to a service that keeps files as they are. Apple's own guide to sharing on iPhone says it plainly: sharing a photo or video includes its metadata, such as date and time, location, device and captions (Apple Support).

Photos are often protected by accident, because many apps and websites shrink and re-save photos, which drops the metadata along the way. Videos are usually kept as recorded, because re-encoding video is slow and lowers quality. That is why a video can still carry a location after the photos from the same afternoon have lost theirs.

How to share a video without its location

On an iPhone

• For one share: open the video, tap Share, tap Options, and turn off Location. "Location Not Included" appears above the Options button. This works for several photos and videos at once too (Apple Support).
• For something already in your library: open it, tap More, then Adjust Info, Adjust Location, and choose No Location (Apple Support, managing location metadata).
• To stop recording location at all: Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera, and choose Never (same source). You lose the map of where your photos were taken, which some families love, so decide which matters more.

On Android with Google Photos

Google Photos treats two kinds of location differently (Google Photos Help):

• Estimated locations, which Google Photos guesses, can be removed (open the item, More, Edit, Remove location), and Google says they are not shared when you share inside Google Photos.
• Locations your camera recorded cannot be edited or removed in Google Photos. If you download a file and send it some other way, the original location goes with it. To prevent it, turn off location tags in your camera app's settings; the exact menu varies by phone maker.

Google also points out something that applies to every phone: even without metadata, people can sometimes work out where a video was taken from what is in the frame, such as a street sign, a school logo or a recognizable view.

What WholeFamily does with your videos

WholeFamily removes location, device and camera details from videos when they are uploaded, before they are encrypted and stored. We do it without re-encoding, so the picture and sound stay exactly as you recorded them. The timed metadata tracks are removed and their data overwritten with zeros. We keep the recording date in the file's header, because a family album without dates is not much of an album.

We tested this on the iPhone clip described above: after processing, ExifTool found no location, device or lens information, the raw file no longer contained the coordinates or the phone model, and the decoded video and main audio track produced the same checksums as the original's. Photos have always been re-saved on upload, which drops their location and camera details.

For photos and videos in WholeFamily, you do not have to remember the Options switch. It is still a good habit for everything else you send, and for the moments a video is texted to someone outside the family.

The short version

• Videos record location, often more than photos do, and the data travels with the file.
• On iPhone, tap Share, then Options, and turn off Location before you send.
• On Android, a location recorded by the camera stays in the file; turn location tags off in the camera app if that matters to you.
• In WholeFamily, location, device and camera details are removed from photos and videos on upload. See our privacy policy and how we encrypt your photos.