How to find where a photo was taken

The fastest way: an online location finder

Open the Trailroll photo location finder and drop the photo in. It reads the coordinates, the capture date and the camera, and shows the spot on a map. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded, so it works for private photos too.

On iPhone or iPad

1. 1Open the photo in the Photos app.
2. 2Swipe up on the photo, or tap the ⓘ button.
3. 3A small map shows where it was taken, with the place name. Tap the map to see it larger and to see other photos taken nearby.

If you see no map, the photo has no saved location. That's normal for screenshots, photos saved from most apps and photos taken while Location Services were off for the Camera.

On Android

1. 1Open the photo in Google Photos (or Gallery on Samsung).
2. 2Swipe up on the photo to open its details.
3. 3The location appears as a place name and a map. Tap it to open the spot in Google Maps.

Google Photos sometimes shows an estimated location for photos without GPS, based on your Location History. An estimate is not stored in the file, so other apps won't see it.

On Windows

1. 1Right-click the photo in File Explorer and choose Properties.
2. 2Open the Details tab and scroll to the GPS section.
3. 3Latitude and longitude are written as degrees, minutes and seconds, for example 36; 23; 35.5. Type them into Google Maps as 36°23'35.5"N to see the place.

Remember that latitude south of the equator and longitude west of Greenwich are negative, and Windows shows the hemisphere in separate reference fields.

On a Mac

In the Photos app, select the photo and press ⌘I. The Info window shows a map when the photo has a location.

For a file outside Photos, open it in Preview, choose Tools → Show Inspector, open the ⓘ tab and look for a GPS tab. It shows the coordinates and a map.

When a photo has no location

Location data is easy to lose. These are the usual reasons a photo shows nothing:

• Location was off for the camera when the photo was taken. See how to turn on photo location.
• The photo came through a social network or messenger. Instagram, Facebook, X and WhatsApp remove metadata from photos you upload or send. Downloading the photo back gives you a copy without GPS.
• It's a screenshot or an edited export. Screenshots never have GPS, and some editors drop metadata when saving.
• It was taken with a camera without GPS. Most standalone cameras only geotag when paired with a phone app.

In those cases the file can't tell you where it was taken. You can still work it out from the photos around it: if you took a geotagged photo an hour earlier, the untagged one was almost certainly taken nearby. Trailroll does this automatically and suggests a place based on your other photos from the same days. See how to add a location to photos without GPS.

What about finding the place from the picture itself?

If there's no metadata, reverse image search (Google Lens, Bing Visual Search) can recognise landmarks and well-photographed views. It works for famous places and fails for a random street or beach. Metadata, when it's there, gives you the exact spot to within a few metres.