To make your iPhone save where each photo was taken, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, make sure Location Services is on, then tap Camera and choose While Using the App. Leave Precise Location on. From then on, every photo and video you take with the Camera app saves its place, which you can see by swiping up on the photo.
It only works going forward: photos taken while the setting was off stay without a location unless you add one by hand.
Step by step
- Open Settings.
- Tap Privacy & Security, then Location Services.
- Check that the Location Services switch at the top is on. If it's off, nothing on the phone can use your location, Camera included.
- Scroll down the list of apps and tap Camera.
- Choose While Using the App.
- Make sure Precise Location is on.
Apple sometimes moves things between iOS versions, but this path has been stable for several years. If you can't find it, type "Location Services" into the search field at the top of Settings.
Test it in ten seconds
- Open the Camera and take a photo of anything.
- Open it in Photos and swipe up (or tap the Info button).
- You should see a small map with where you are. Tap it to check the pin.
If there's no map, go back to step 4 above and check the Camera setting again. Then delete the test photo. Our guide on how to see where a photo was taken shows the details panel in full.
The options, explained
- Never: photos are saved without a location. This is how most "my photos have no location" stories start; see why some of your iPhone photos have no location.
- Ask Next Time Or When I Share: the Camera asks again later instead of deciding now. Fine if you want to think about it, but easy to dismiss and forget.
- While Using the App: the Camera reads your location only while it's open, which is all it needs to tag photos.
Precise Location decides how exact the tag is. Apple says that with it off, an app gets only your approximate location. For travel photos that can mean a pin in roughly the right area rather than the right spot, which is a problem near borders and on small islands.
Other camera apps
The setting above covers Apple's Camera app. If you take photos with another app, it has its own entry in the same Location Services list, and its own choice. Check each camera app you use.
Before a trip
A two-minute check before you leave saves a lot of guesswork later:
- Look at the Camera setting as above, especially on a new phone or after a restore.
- Take a test shot on arrival and swipe up on it. It confirms the location is being saved in the new country.
- Don't switch off Location Services to save battery for the whole trip. That's how a fortnight in Japan ends up with no places at all. The Camera only uses location while it's open.
- Mind the date and time zone if you also carry a separate camera. Its photos will have no location, but a correct clock lets you place them later next to your iPhone shots.
Location Services uses GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile networks when they're available, Apple says. With fewer of those around, in a remote valley or with roaming switched off, the phone can take longer to find where it is. If a photo matters, give it a moment, and check its details afterward.
Worried about privacy?
Keeping the location on your photos is mostly a benefit: it's what puts your trips on the map in Photos and lets you rebuild your travel history years later. The risk is in sharing. Apple notes that sharing a photo includes its location unless you switch it off. Rather than turning the Camera's location off for good, keep it on and strip it from the copies you send: how to share a photo without its location.
If you want to know which countries you've been to, those saved locations are the raw material. Finding every country you've been to from your iPhone photos shows how to read them by hand. Globestamp reads them for you, privately on the iPhone, and turns them into a globe of the countries you've been to without uploading a single photo.
Already have photos with no location?
Switching the setting on doesn't fix old photos. For those, open a photo, tap the More button, then Adjust Info > Adjust Location, and type the place. You can select a whole trip and do it in one go. How to add or change a photo's location on iPhone has the steps.