In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to enable or disable the location based features for Photos app on Windows 11. The Photos app now can search for your photos and videos by location, which is a useful feature.
If you have upgraded your device to Windows 11, you’ll notice several improvements for built-in apps. Applications like Notepad, Paint, Calculator, and Photos have all undergone extensive redesigns to improve user experience and usability.
Among the built-in apps, the Photos app now includes numerous new features, including the generative erase feature, which can fix and remove distractions from your captured images. One such useful feature that we’re going to discuss is the location based feature.
What information is collected?
When you allow the Photos app to use location based features, Microsoft’s location service collects latitude and longitude as part of embedded data. Microsoft uses this information to determine where your photo or video was taken. Microsoft does not store this collected information.
Enable Location Based Features for the Photos App
When you launch the Photos app for the first time on Windows 11, you get a pop-up asking you to activate the location-based features. Here is how you can do that.
- First, to launch the app, click on Start and enter ‘Photos‘ in the search box.
- Select the Photos app from the list to open.
- Select Yes when a pop-up appears asking if you want to enable location-based features.
Turn on location based features in Photos app settings
You can manually turn on the location based features in the Photos app settings. First, launch the Photos app and click on the settings icon located in the top-right corner of the app window. Under Personalization, set the ‘Enable Location Based Features‘ toggle to On.
Once you’ve turned on the above feature, you can now search your Photos collection by city, state, and country. You can also search for photos taken during a specific year by typing the year into the search box. The location recommendations also appear in the Photos app’s search bar results, making it simple to find what you are looking for.
Turn Off Location Based Features for Photos App
- Select Start and enter photos in the search box.
- Select the Photos app from the list to launch.
- In the Photos app, select Settings in the top-right corner.
- Under Personalization, set the Enable Location Based Features toggle to Off.
Once you’ve turned location search off, you won’t be able to search by location or see location recommendations in the Photos app search bar.
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