Why Do Field Photos Lose Their GPS Location?
Bernat Fortet ·
Field photos usually lose their GPS location after they are taken, not before: a chat app, a shared album or an upload form strips it on the way to the office. The rest of the time, the camera app was never allowed to use location. Both are easy to prevent once a team knows where it happens.
For carbon and restoration monitoring teams this matters more than for most. A geotagged photo is evidence that someone stood at a plot on a given day, and a photo without a location is just a picture of trees. If the terms are new, our explainer on what EXIF location data is covers what a photo stores.
How do you check which photos have no location?
Drop the whole batch on our free Geotagged Photo Map. Photos with a location appear as pins; the ones without are counted and listed apart. Nothing is uploaded.
Check the originals on the phone too. If a photo has a location on the phone and none at the office, it was stripped on the way. If it has none on the phone either, look at the camera settings below.
Which apps remove a photo's location?
Many of the apps field teams use to send photos. "Documented" means the company says so itself, in its help pages, announcements or staff statements; "Reported" means tests, bug reports or user reports, not the company. Checked 18 October 2026; apps change, so test your own route (see below).
| App or route | Location | How sure |
|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp, sent as photo | Removed (the HD option is not well tested) | Reported |
| WhatsApp, sent as document | Kept | Reported |
| Signal | Removed | Reported |
| Telegram, sent as photo | Removed | Reported |
| Telegram, sent as file | Depends: a | Reported |
| Facebook and Instagram posts | Removed from the copy others see | Reported |
| Slack | Removed | Documented ( |
| Microsoft Teams chats and channels, desktop and web | Removed, with camera make and model | Documented ( |
| Google Photos links, shared albums and conversations | Not shared by default; you can turn it on for each | |
| Google Photos partner sharing, and downloads | Kept | |
| iCloud Shared Albums | Removed | Reported |
| AirDrop and the iPhone share sheet | Your choice: Options, then Location | |
| Samsung Gallery share | Depends: "Remove location data" when sharing, and Maximum restrictions removes it automatically on some models | Documented |
| Email attachment (Gmail, Outlook) | Kept, when attached as a file | Reported |
| Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive | Kept in the file you download; Dropbox and OneDrive previews drop it | Reported ( |
| Photo taken inside a web upload on iPhone | Removed | Documented ( |
| Android apps without access to photo locations | Hidden from that app | |
| ODK Collect "choose image", Android 11+ (KoboCollect is built on it) | Usually removed |
Two rows catch teams that think they did everything right. On Android, the file on the phone can have its location while an app that picks it, or a web form, receives it without, because Android hides photo locations from apps that have not been given that permission. And in ODK Collect and KoboCollect, a photo taken with the form's camera usually keeps its location, while the same photo chosen from the gallery afterwards usually does not.
How do you send field photos without losing the location?
- Copy the original files. A cable from phone to computer copies the files as they are. On an iPhone, set Transfer to Mac or PC, in the Photos settings, to Keep Originals, so the photos arrive in their original format, such as HEIC, instead of being converted (
Apple).
- On WhatsApp, send as a document. Tap Document, choose the photos, and they go as original files.
- On an iPhone, turn location on when sharing. In the share sheet, tap Options and switch on Location. For AirDrop, All Photos Data sends the full photo data, original included.
- Use partner sharing or download originals from Google Photos, rather than a shared link.
- Collect the photos in the app that needs them, attached to the plot or tree record, instead of passing them around afterwards.
Whatever route a team settles on, test it once before the season: send one photo along the whole chain, from the field phone to whoever writes the report, and drop the result on the Geotagged Photo Map. If the pin appears, the route works. If it does not, you found out before a report was due.
iPhone photos usually arrive as HEIC, which keeps the location. Many converters do not, including our own HEIC to JPEG Converter, so map or archive the HEIC originals first.
Which phone settings make photos record a location?
- iPhone: Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera: set While Using the App (
- Google Pixel: in the Camera app, Settings, More settings, Save location (
Google).
- Samsung Galaxy: in the Camera app, Settings, Location tags, with location turned on for the phone (
Samsung).
- Other Android phones: look for "Save location" or "Location" in the camera settings, and check that the camera app has location permission.
Then take one test photo before the day starts and check it has a location. GPS works without mobile data or Wi-Fi, but the first fix takes longer without them, sometimes minutes. Photos taken in that first stretch can get no location, or a position cached from earlier. Waiting a minute in the open, as our guide to phone GPS accuracy explains, gives a better fix.
If a phone keeps failing, a camera app that refuses to shoot without a fix helps. Open Camera on Android has a "Require location data" setting for this.
Which phones record the direction the camera faced?
Some photos also store which way the camera was pointing, in a field called GPSImgDirection. With it, a map can show each photo as a cone pointing at what it shows, which makes repeat photo points far easier to retake and to check.
- iPhone: the Camera app records the direction, against true north in every sample we found. Still check the reference field before you trust a bearing: other apps and cameras use magnetic north, which can differ by 10 degrees or more depending on where you are.
- Android: Android's camera system passes only the position to the photo (
Android), so a stock camera app records direction only if its maker added it. It varies by phone; Samsung owners report that theirs does not.
- Apps that add it on Android:
Open Camera ("Store compass direction"), the camera inside
QField, and
Fulcrum since its March 2026 version. Open Camera and QField write magnetic north.
- Rugged cameras: Olympus Tough TG models with GPS record direction too; sample files show magnetic north.
- Drones: DJI drones store the camera's heading as gimbal yaw in their own
XMP fields, not in GPSImgDirection.
- Cameras that take location from a phone app may get the position only.
Canon's manual, for one, says direction is not passed on.
Treat a phone compass as a rough guide. In one study, calibrated Apple devices were sometimes within 5 degrees and in other tests spread over 30 (Jones, 2021). Metal, vehicles and nearby electronics throw it off. Hold the phone upright: Esri found that iPhones on iOS 16 recorded landscape photos 90 degrees off, including photos from the Camera app (
Esri).
A written-down direction is not more reliable. Toronto Nature Stewards volunteers log a compass direction for every PhotoPoint they photograph. When we compared the log with the phones' headings, about half the photos with a heading disagreed with the logged direction by more than 45 degrees. We cannot say which was right each time. One likely contributor is the city itself: Toronto's street grid runs about 16 to 17 degrees west of true north, so "north" along a street is not north on a compass. Only 227 of their 602 photos had a heading at all.
What can you do with photos that already lost their location?
- Find the original. It is often still on the phone that took it. Ask for it again as a file, or copy it by cable.
- Match it to a GPS track. If someone recorded a track while the photos were taken, software can give each photo the position on the track at the moment it was taken:
- Place it by hand on a map, when you know where it was taken.
- Retake it on the next visit, for photo points that will be compared over the years.
The same track-matching works for cameras without GPS: set the camera clock to the phone's time, record a track on the phone, and geotag the photos afterwards.
For evidence, keep a note of which locations were added afterwards and how. A location matched to a track is a good estimate; a location typed in by hand is a claim. A verifier should be able to tell them apart from what the camera recorded.
How does Restoration Scope keep photo locations?
When a field team attaches a photo to a record in the Restoration Scope app, the app reads the photo's location from its EXIF data. If the photo has none, it uses the phone's GPS position, if it is less than a minute old, and records where the location came from. When photos carry a direction, the map shows the cone, on the phone as on the desktop.
Frequently asked questions
Does WhatsApp remove the location from photos?
Yes, when you send them the normal way. Sending the photo as a document (Document, then choose the photo) sends the original file, and users report that it keeps the location. WhatsApp does not document either behaviour, and the HD option has not been tested well.
Does Google Photos remove the location when sharing?
For links, shared albums and conversations, the location is not shared by default, and you can turn it on for each one. Partner sharing includes it, and downloading a photo gives you the location the phone recorded. Locations Google estimates are never shared.
Why does my iPhone photo have no location?
Usually because the Camera app is not allowed to use location. Check Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, Camera, and set it to While Using the App. If the photo had a location when it was taken, it was probably removed when it was shared.
Can I add GPS to photos from a GPS track?
Yes. Record a track on a phone or GPS unit while you take photos, then match each photo's time to the track with ExifTool, Lightroom Classic or digiKam. Make sure the software reads the camera's times in the right time zone, because tracks are in UTC and camera clocks are usually local time.
Do Android phones record which way the camera faced?
It depends on the phone and the camera app, and many stock Android cameras do not, while iPhones do. On Android, Open Camera can store the compass direction, and so do the cameras built into QField and Fulcrum.