My wife and I run OpenBenches (https://openbenches.org). It’s a niche little site which lets people share photos of memorial benches and their locations. Most modern phones embed a geolocation within the photo’s metadata, so we use that information to put the photos on a map.

Google’s Android has now broken that.

On the web, we used to use:

That opened the phone’s photo picker and let the use upload a geotagged photo. But a while ago Google deliberately broke that.

Instead, we were encourage to use the file picker:

That opened the default file manager. This had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing the user to upload any file, rather than just photos. But it did allow the EXIF metadata through unmolested. Then Google broke that as well (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/428397711).

Using a “Progressive Web App” doesn’t work either.

So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? No. That’s now broken as well (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/485307531).

You can’t even directly share via email without the location being stripped away.

Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable, copy the photo to your computer, and then upload it via a desktop web browser?

Why?!?!? (https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/android-now-stops-you-sharing-your-location-in-photos/#why)

Because Google run an anticompetitive monopoly on their dominant mobile operating system.

Privacy.

There’s a worry that users don’t know they’re taking photos with geolocation enabled. If you post a cute picture of your kid / jewellery / pint then there’s a risk that a ne’er-do-well could find your exact location.

Most social media services are sensible and strip the location automatically. If you try to send a geotagged photo to Facebook / Mastodon / BlueSky / WhatsApp / etc, they default to not showing the location. You can add it in manually if you want, but anyone downloading your photo won’t see the geotag.

And, you know, I get it. Google doesn’t want the headline “Stalkers found me, kidnapped my baby, and stole my wedding ring - how a little known Android feature puts you in danger!”

But it is just so tiresome that Google never consults their community. There was no advance notice of this change that I could find. Just a bunch of frustrated users in my inbox blaming me for breaking something.

I don’t know what the answer is. Perhaps a pop up saying “This website wants to see the location of your photos. Yes / No / Always / Never”? People get tired of constant prompts and the wording will never be clear enough for most users.

It looks like the only option available will be to develop a native Android app (and an iOS one?!) with all the cost, effort, and admin that entails. Android apps have a special permission for accessing geolocation in images (https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media#location-media-captured).

If anyone has a working way to let Android web-browsers access the full geolocation EXIF metadata of photos uploaded on the web, please drop a comment in the box.

In the meantime, please leave a +1 on this HTML Spec comment (https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11724#issuecomment-4192228562).