Photos downloaded from iCloud Photo Library missing GPS metadata

[enigmakv]

Also posted on Apple Discussion forums...

Photos that exist in my iCloud Photo Library are missing GPS metadata when downloaded to computer.

I have tested a couple scenarios...

In one, I took a photo with my iPhone. The photo propagated to "Photos" on my other iOS devices and to the "Photos" app on iCloud.com.
On either iOS device, in the "Moments" section of the Photos app, the photo shows up with the proper location noted. When I view the photo in detail, it has the proper date and time as well. Using both the apps "ExifWiz Pro" and "Metapho", the GPS coordinates and location info show up with no problems.
On iCloud.com, the photo also shows up with the proper location in the "Moments" section.

Takeaway: GPS metadata is intact in the photo while in the "Photos" app of iOS and iCloud.com.

When I download the photo file from iCloud.com to the Mac (click the little cloud with down-arrow icon) and run "exiftool" on the photo, the GPS data is all missing.


As a second test, I took one of my thousands of photos stored on Dropbox and imported it to "Photos" in iCloud.com from my Mac. Before uploading, I ran "exiftool" on the photo and it had the full complement of metadata including all the GPS tags.
After upload, the photo, from several years ago, showed up on all my iOS devices and obviously on iCloud.com. On all devices it showed up with the proper location noted in the "Moments" view of the Photos app. It even went to the proper place (several years back) in the timeline.
I again ran "ExifWiz Pro" and "Metapho" against the uploaded photo on the iOS devices and again, the GPS coordinates and location info were present.

Takeaway again: GPS metadata is intact in the uploaded photo while in the "Photos" app of iOS and iCloud.com.

Next, I re-downloaded to my Mac the photo that had been manually uploaded and tested it with "exiftool". Guess what. NO GPS METADATA TAGS in the downloaded copy.

So in two separate instances, one with a photo taken in iOS and another with an uploaded photo, the GPS tags were all stripped from the metadata when downloading the photos from iCloud.com to a computer.

Specifically, the missing metadata tags are:
GPS Latitude Ref
GPS Longitude Ref
GPS Altitude Ref
GPS Time Stamp
GPS Img Direction Ref
GPS Img Direction
GPS Altitude
GPS Latitude
GPS Longitude
GPS Position

This is very valuable information for photos exported from the iCloud Photo Library!

Does anyone know if this is a "feature" or a bug in the iCloud Photo Library?

 

[ianrandy]

YES! I noticed this a few days ago. Photos emailed from my iPhone or sent to my mac using AirDrop contain the original images creation date and all GPS data.

Any image downloaded from iCould Photos has a new creation date of the time of download and no GPS data at all. Its as if iCloud is creating a new version of the image rather than providing you with a copy of the original.

Until this is sorted out I can't use it as a backup of my images unfortunately. Dropbox/Google+/Flickr etc do not have these issues

 

[gpspad]

Isn't there a setting that strips the location data when you are publishing a photo?

Ill have to check to see where I saw that setting, but that may be what is happeining.

 

[NazgulRR]

The GPS metadata is present while inside the Photos.app on OSX as well.

Very odd behaviour if you ask me, but it doesn't seem that iCloud is stripping away the GPS metadata, even this is the case with photos exported back out from the iCloud. Maybe it's a bug that we all should just report to Apple?

 

[azukre]

Has this issue already been fixed?

 

[NazgulRR]

file->export original image (or sth like that). GPS data is there.

 

[azukre]

Hi NazgulRR, you meant on iCloud.com?

 

[NazgulRR]

Hi NazgulRR, you meant on iCloud.com?

in the photos app. Havent looked into the icloud website photos section yet.