Tuxia guide · about 4 min
Your photos are leaking your location
Every photo your phone takes carries a "spec sheet" — EXIF data, tucked into the JPEG header:
- Capture time, down to the second;
- Device info: brand, model, sometimes serial number;
- GPS coordinates: ⚠️ latitude/longitude accurate to meters — your home, your kid's school, all in one photo;
- Shooting settings: aperture, shutter, ISO.
When does it leak?
Most social platforms strip EXIF on upload, which is relatively safe. But these keep it fully intact: sharing originals via cloud drives, email attachments, "original image" forum uploads, Bluetooth / cable transfers. In short: whenever the original travels "as a file", the EXIF travels with it.
Real cases are common: someone's marketplace listing photo exposed their home address through GPS in EXIF; a reporter's work photo leaked the shoot location. Spending 5 seconds checking EXIF before posting is the cheapest privacy habit there is.
Check and wipe in three steps
- Look: open Tuxia's EXIF viewer & cleaner, upload the photo, see everything;
- Judge: focus on GPS coordinates — if present, don't post it raw;
- Wipe: hit "Clean EXIF & download" — pixels untouched, metadata gone.
Cleaning is lossless: only the header's metadata segments are removed, zero quality loss.
You can also turn it off at the source: iPhone → Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Camera; Android → camera settings → turn off "save location". But photos you already took still need the tool.
Check my photo →
Related: JPG vs PNG vs WebP · FAQ