Adding Geolocation Information Into Apple Photos

One of the best things about the iPhone is that each photo that you take automatically can be geolocated. I really appreciate this because I can quickly ‘zoom into’ different parts of the world and see the images I took in that place.

However, I take very few iPhone photos these days. For the past several years almost all of my images were made on either a Fuji X100F, Leica Q2, or a Ricoh GR or GRIIIx. None of these cameras have GPS modules. The result is that they do not natively add geolocation, or GPS, information into images metadata.

Fuji and Leica do have apps that you can use to add GPS information to photos taken with their respective cameras. However, actually setting them up takes a number of steps. Moreover, it requires you to have — and open — applications associated with the camera I’m using at any given time.

Instead of using manufacturer-specific applications I have purchased lifetime licences for Geotags Photos Pro 2 and Geotag Photos Tagger.¹ In Canada, the Geotags Photos Pro 2 was just $15 and Geotags Photo Tagger is $12. While not free, the I use the applications each week and I’m well below $1/use at this point, and all of my photos for over the past year are accurately tagged.

Using the applications, and adding the metadata, is very easy. Once you ensure that you’ve set the timezones up correctly between your camera and the application….you’re finished. All you need to do is activate Geotags Photos Pro 2 ahead of going out for a photowalk (I tend to have it collect the GPS information every 5 minutes) and, after the photowalk, I put all my images into Apple Photos and then open Geotags Photos Tagger to apply the GPS information to all the images I’ve taken.

That’s it: once you’ve done this you’re done.

As a street photographer I’m most interested in posting photos with names that include the cross-streets of where an image was taken. So having GPS information is helpful for this purpose. But when I’ve been out for hikes it also does a good job locating different photographs that I’ve made — so long as my phone can get geolocation information I can then add the data to my mirror less camera images.

In conclusion: If you’re looking for a pretty easy, and affordable, way of adding GPS data to your images I can’t recommend these two applications enough!