People ask “does Instagram remove EXIF?” The useful question is: which file left your phone. A compressed share and an original attachment are different objects.
Apps change this. Treat the table as the usual case, then check the actual file if it matters.
Usually stripped on the way out
The other person gets a recompressed picture, not your camera original.
- Instagram — upload is recompressed. GPS and most camera tags do not ride along.
- Facebook feed and Marketplace photos — same family. The pixels are rewritten.
- WhatsApp — the default photo send is compressed and washed. Send as a document and you often keep the original bag.
- iMessage / many iOS share sheets — often strip location. “Keep original” and some Mac sends do not.
- Signal, X, LinkedIn — typically recompress.
- Telegram — compressed photo strips; “as a file” keeps tags.
Usually not stripped
If they can save the file you attached, they can read the tags.
- Email — Gmail, Mail, Outlook. The attachment is the file.
- Slack and Discord — uploads keep EXIF unless you already washed it.
- AirDrop, USB, a zip, Drive, Dropbox — the original.
- “Download original” from Google Photos or iCloud — often still the camera file, including GPS.
Google Photos is the trap that looks like a privacy setting. Turning a location off in the app does not always rewrite the GPS still sitting in the export. Same idea in the iOS Photos map.
Do not trust the app. Trust the file.
- Share the way you actually share — then save that outgoing copy if you can.
- Drop it on Photo Location. Pin or no pin is the answer.
- If you need it clean before it leaves, Remove Photo Metadata and send that copy.
Screenshots are already empty of camera EXIF. Blunt, valid, ugly.
Marketplace and dating sends are their own mess: what still leaks in listing and dating photos. The full breadcrumb list is what data is stored in a photo you send.