How to Edit GPS Coordinates on a Photo

Sometimes a photo already has GPS data — it's just wrong. A GPS fix that locked on before you arrived, a phone that cached a stale location, or coordinates carried over from editing on a different device can all leave the pin sitting in the wrong place. Here's how to find and correct it.

Check where the current pin actually sits

Before changing anything, look at the existing coordinates on a map — it's easy to assume a photo is wrong when it's actually correct, especially if a location was recorded from a nearby cell tower or Wi-Fi network rather than GPS. Most metadata tools with a map view will plot the current pin for you automatically.

What Windows and Mac built-in tools can('t) do

Windows' Photos app and file Properties panel can display GPS coordinates but won't let you edit them. macOS Preview's inspector is read-only for location too. Correcting GPS data requires a dedicated metadata editor with write access to the location fields — ideally one with a map, since typing exact decimal latitude and longitude by hand is slow and error-prone.

The Exif Forge way

Drag the pin to the right spot

Exif Forge plots the existing GPS location on an interactive map — drag the pin to correct it, or paste exact coordinates if you know them precisely.

Map + satellite view, drag-to-place pin correction

Edit latitude, longitude and altitude directly

Fix an entire batch of misplaced photos in one pass

RAW originals untouched — edits go to a companion .xmp sidecar

See the GPS Editor

Correcting a whole shoot at once

If an entire trip or shoot picked up the same wrong location — a common symptom when a phone cached one bad fix at the start of a walk — you don't need to fix each photo individually. Select the whole batch, correct the location once, and apply it across all of them together.

FAQ

Why would a photo have the wrong GPS location?

GPS chips can drift indoors or near tall buildings, phones sometimes cache a stale location fix before the GPS locks on, and photos imported or edited by certain apps can pick up the wrong coordinates from a linked device or account.

Can I fix GPS on a whole folder that all has the same wrong location?

Yes — select every affected file and correct the coordinates once; the fix applies to all of them in a single pass instead of editing files one at a time.

Does editing GPS data affect the photo file itself?

No. GPS coordinates live in metadata alongside the image, not in the pixel data, so correcting them has no effect on resolution or image quality.