Platforms
Do WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord keep photo location? A test
We sent a GPS-tagged photo through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord and Slack. 'Send as document' kept every tag on two of them. Results from November 2026.
Updated
Most advice about photo metadata repeats what platforms were believed to do years ago. So we tested it. We sent two test files through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord and Slack on 3 November 2026, downloaded them back the way a recipient would, and checked what survived.
The short version: on WhatsApp and Telegram, a normal photo send strips your location. Sending the same photo as a document or file delivers it byte-for-byte, with exact GPS coordinates, camera details and any AI-generated label intact. Discord and Slack strip metadata even from file attachments.
Results
| App | Sent as | GPS location | Camera / date | AI label (C2PA) | File you receive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo | Removed | Removed | Removed | Re-compressed JPEG | |
| Document | Kept | Kept | Kept | Identical to the original | |
| Telegram | Photo | Removed | Removed | Removed | Re-compressed JPEG |
| Telegram | File | Kept | Kept | Kept | Identical to the original |
| Discord | Attachment (“Open original”) | Removed | Removed | Removed | Re-written file |
| Discord | Inline preview | Removed | Removed | Removed | Converted to WebP |
| Slack | File upload | Removed | Removed | Removed | Re-written file |
“Identical to the original” means the downloaded file matched the uploaded one byte for byte. Nothing was changed at all.
What this means
“Send as document” sends your location. People choose the document or file option on WhatsApp and Telegram for a good reason: it avoids compression. But the same option skips every privacy step. A photo taken at home and sent as a document tells the recipient where your home is, down to a few metres, plus your phone model and the exact time.
Missing AI labels prove nothing. Our second test file was an image generated by ChatGPT, carrying OpenAI’s C2PA “Content Credentials” label. Every normal photo send removed it, and so did Discord and Slack. If an image reaches you with no AI label, that tells you very little about whether it was AI-generated. If it reaches you as a document, the label can survive intact.
Discord strips more than its reputation suggests. Discord attachments are often described, including in our own earlier notes, as arriving with metadata intact. In our test, even the “Open original” download had every EXIF tag and the C2PA label removed.
How we tested
- Test files: a JPEG carrying 22 EXIF tags, including GPS coordinates (pointing at San Francisco’s Civic Center, not anyone’s real location), camera make and model, and capture date; and a PNG carrying a genuine C2PA manifest from ChatGPT.
- Apps: the web versions of WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord and Slack, used on 3 November 2026. Each file was sent to the sender’s own chat (WhatsApp “Message yourself”, Telegram Saved Messages, a private Discord server, a Slack DM to self).
- Download: each file was downloaded back using the app’s own download option, as a recipient would.
- Check: every download was compared byte-for-byte with the original and read with lossless-metadata, the open-source engine behind this site.
The test files, downloaded results and the script are public on GitHub, in lossless-metadata/study, so anyone can reproduce the test. Mobile apps can behave differently from the web versions, and apps change without notice. That is the reason to strip metadata yourself rather than trusting any app to do it.
What to do
If you want to send a photo at full quality without sending its location, remove the metadata first. Metadata Remover AI does it in your browser, without uploading the file and without re-compressing it. Then send it as a document: you keep the quality, and the recipient gets no coordinates.
To check what a photo you received is carrying, open it in the EXIF viewer.