Quick answer
Gmail and Outlook do not publish whether they remove EXIF or GPS data from photos you attach or insert. We read their help pages on attaching and inserting pictures and found no statement on photo metadata in any of them. That includes the question of whether Gmail strips the location from a photo: Gmail Help does not publish an answer.
Do not rely on unpublished behaviour. If a photo was taken somewhere you would rather not reveal, remove the metadata yourself before it goes into the email.
What Gmail and Outlook say
- The Gmail Help page Send attachments with your Gmail message covers attaching files and dragging an image into the compose window. We found no mention of metadata, resizing or compression on it. The iPhone and iPad version says a single selected photo is inserted into the message text, multiple photos are added as attachments, and a menu offers Send inline or Send as attachment. The Android version only says you can attach up to five photos at a time.
- The Gmail Help page How Gmail protects your privacy says attachments you send are stored securely in Google data centres. It says nothing about what the files contain.
- The Outlook page Add pictures or attach files to emails in Outlook separates inserted pictures from attachments: attachments always appear at the top of the email, while an inserted picture can go anywhere in the message. It says nothing about metadata.
- The page Send attachments and images in Outlook mobile says images are added to the body of the message automatically, while other file types stay regular attachments. For large images it offers to compress or resize them, and choosing resize compresses all images on the message. It does not say whether that keeps or removes EXIF or GPS data.
- The page Reduce attachment size to send large files with Outlook says compressing a picture keeps its height and width but lowers its resolution. It does not mention metadata.
The inline versus attachment distinction these pages document is about layout and how the file is sent. None says an inline image carries different metadata from an attachment, or that resizing changes it.
Clean the photo before you send it
- Open the tool above and add your JPG, PNG or WebP photos, up to 5 at a time. It runs entirely in your browser and your files are never uploaded.
- Read the before list. It shows what each file held, such as GPS position, camera make and model, serial number, and date and time.
- Download the cleaned copy. The metadata is cut out without re-encoding, so there is no quality loss. The ICC colour profile is kept, and on JPEGs a bare rotation flag is kept.
- Check the after list. The tool re-reads the cleaned file to show what is left.
- Attach or insert the cleaned file in your email. For HEIC, Safari can open the file and the tool re-saves it as a JPEG, which is a re-encode; in a browser that cannot open HEIC, convert it first. GIF is not supported.
What this does not remove
- What is visible in the picture. Faces, street signs and a recognisable view all stay. Crop or retake the photo if they give away where you are.
- The file name. The tool does not rename files, and an attachment travels under its file name. Rename it yourself.
- Copies stored elsewhere. Cleaning a photo does not recall one you already sent, and it does not touch the copy in your sent folder, the recipient's mailbox or a backup.
Other apps are just as quiet: see what WhatsApp says about photo metadata. To check a file first, read how to see what metadata a photo has, or remove the location from an iPhone photo.