Add location data to a jpg that is missing it

Jason Raimondi

Install dependencies

The only dependency required is going to be exiftool.

MacOS

brew install exiftool

Debian or Ubuntu

sudo apt install -y exiftool

Use OpenStreetMaps to find the your location coordinates

If you open OpenStreetMaps and navigate to the location you’d like to add. I wanted to add the location of the venue for my wedding photographs.

It landed me about here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/34.41824/-118.79546

Latitude: 34.418243 Longitude: -118.795463

exiftool 
    -GPSLongitudeRef="West" 
    -XMP:GPSLongitude="-118.795463" 
    -GPSLatitudeRef="North" 
    -XMP:GPSLatitude="34.418243" 
    input-image.jpg

If you wanted to do an entire directory of images

exiftool 
    -GPSLongitudeRef="West" 
    -XMP:GPSLongitude="-118.795463" 
    -GPSLatitudeRef="North" 
    -XMP:GPSLatitude="34.418243" 
    /path/to/**/*.jpg

Exiftool adds the location data to the photo by altering the file in place while also creating a copy of the original file(s) at {input-file-name}-original.

Importing into Apple Photos

Now when we import our photos into Apple Photos, the location data shows up correctly for our images.