Google has made an important change that will affect the accuracy of location information stored with some photos, potentially causing them to lose their precise location on a map or impacting your ability to search for them based on where they were taken.
If your Google Photos account contains photos that were taken without attached location data, Google will attempt to estimate the location for you. However, one of the most accurate ways to do this, Google’s Location History feature, is no longer being used. This means Google Photos will have to resort to other methods of guessing where your pictures were taken, such as scanning your photos to look for prominent landmarks.
Google Photos has is changing how unknown photo locations are estimated.
This change should boost user privacy, but it could also cause problems if you search for, say, all the photos you took on a particular trip, as stored locations may no longer be as accurate. This may also affect Google Photos’ automatically created ‘Memories’ which can be based on significant locations from your photo library.
Users are now being prompted to (optionally) delete any stored locations in Google Photos that were previously estimated using the Location History feature. If you want to keep these stored locations, you will have to tap the ‘keep’ button before May 1 2023, or the location data will be deleted. Your photos and videos will not themselves be removed.
Most photos won’t be affected
The good news is that photos taken with a smartphone typically won’t be affected as long as the camera has granted location access in the iOS privacy settings or the ‘location tag’ option is enabled on Android. In this case, highly-accurate location information is automatically stored along with each photo, and Google Photos will continue to use this as normal.
How to fix Google Photos location errors
However, any photos taken without this setting enabled or, for example, with a DSLR camera that has no GPS function, will all be affected. Thankfully, you can add or edit location info manually for any individual photo to correct any errors in Google’s estimated location information (or to add any location of your choice). Unfortunately, this doesn’t work when viewing a photo from within an album (please fix this, Google!), and neither can you edit any stored locations that were automatically added by your camera.
Alternatively, if privacy is of prime concern, you can disable Google’s ‘estimate missing locations’ function entirely. This will prevent Google from analyzing your photos in order to work out where they were taken, leaving the location info blank. You’ll find this setting in the Location section of the main Google Photos settings page. It’s worth noting, however, that if you share any images containing estimated location data, the location won’t be included with the photo.
About location history
Google’s optional Location History feature automatically keeps track of where you are whenever you have your mobile device with you, maintaining a reasonably accurate source of location information that can be used to drive convenience features such as helping to find your lost phone or delivering traffic updates about your regular commute. It’s an opt-in feature, so it won’t be enabled unless you turn it on manually. It will still work after these most recent changes, just not for locating your photos.
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