How to find photos by location
Updated 3 November 2026
To find photos by location, search the GPS position your phone or camera stored inside each photo. The Photos app on Windows can search its photos by city or country once you allow its location features, and the Photos app on a Mac shows its library on a map. For photos sitting in ordinary folders, BeaconFind turns those coordinates into place names on your own computer, so you can filter by a place, type “in Lisbon” into a search, or open a map of everything you have indexed.
It is the question people actually ask of a photo collection: not “what was this file called” but “where were we when we took it”. Most phone photos already know. The location is written into the file the moment you press the shutter, next to the date, the camera model and the exposure.
Where the location comes from
Photos carry a block of details called EXIF. When location is switched on for the camera, it includes the latitude and longitude of the shot. That is a pair of numbers, not a place name, so something has to look up which town those numbers fall in before you can search for “Sydney”.
Not every photo has it. Screenshots and scans never do, many dedicated cameras have no GPS, and the location can be removed when a photo is shared or exported. Those photos are still findable, by the date they were taken or by describing what they show.
What Windows and Mac offer built in
Windows. File Explorer reads the coordinates into the photo’s properties (you can see them under Properties, Details), but it does not turn them into a place you can search for. The Photos app can: Microsoft says it searches photos by the location they were taken, such as a city, state or country, once you allow its location features. Microsoft’s October 2026 post about the new Photos app adds a location map to a photo’s information panel, rolling out to Windows Insiders first. Both work on the photos the app shows you, not on any folder you point at.
Mac. The Photos app has a Map in its sidebar that places your library on a map, and each photo’s information shows where it was taken. That covers photos imported into the Photos library. Pictures kept as loose files in folders, such as a camera card copied to an external drive, are outside it.
Finding photos by place with BeaconFind
BeaconFind reads the location while it indexes your folders, from JPEG, HEIC, PNG, WebP and TIFF photos and from CR2, NEF and ARW raw files. It names the nearest town from a list of places stored inside the app (every place with 500 or more inhabitants, from the GeoNames database), or the region when the nearest town is far away. No map service is asked, and nothing about where your photos were taken leaves your computer.
There are three ways to use it, in both the Ctrl+K search window and the Search page:
- The Place filter. Open Place in the filter row, start typing, and pick from the places your own photos were taken in.
- Words in the search. Type something like beach photos in Lisbon. If your photos include Lisbon, the place becomes a small chip you can remove with one click, and the rest of the words still describe the picture.
- The map. The last button of the view switch, Map of where photos were taken, appears once any photo has a place. Dots group by area with a count; click one and that place’s photos open in a strip beside the map.
Place and date work together. A search such as summer 2024 in Paris turns into a date chip and a place chip at once, which is usually the fastest way to the one holiday you mean. Add a description to rank the pictures themselves, for example dinner table summer 2024 in Paris.
Reading locations needs no AI model, so it works on every tier, including the lightest, and adds almost nothing to indexing time. If you would rather not have it, switch off Read photo locations under Settings, General, Privacy; BeaconFind then stores no coordinates or place names for the photos it indexes from then on. Our privacy policy describes exactly what is kept.
Tips for a tidy result
- Turn on location in your phone’s camera if you want future photos to carry it. Nothing can add a place to a photo that never recorded one.
- Copy originals, not shared copies. A photo sent through some apps or exported for the web often loses its location.
- Combine with a description. “Sunset in Lisbon” narrows by place and ranks by what the picture shows.
See your photo folders on a map, free for 14 days, no card. Runs on your own PC or Mac.
Download BeaconFindFrequently asked questions
How do I find photos by location on my computer?
Use the location stored inside the photo. Phones and many cameras save GPS coordinates with every shot. The Photos app on Windows can search by city or country once you allow its location features, and the Photos app on a Mac shows its library on a map. For photos kept in ordinary folders, BeaconFind turns the coordinates into place names on your computer, so you can filter by place or browse every folder on a map.
Can File Explorer search photos by location?
Not by place name. Windows reads a photo's GPS coordinates into its properties, and you can see them in the photo's Properties under Details, but they are numbers, not a town you can type into the search box.
Why do some of my photos have no location?
The location only exists if the camera recorded it. Screenshots, scans, many dedicated cameras and photos whose location was removed when they were shared or exported carry no coordinates. Find those by the date they were taken or by describing what they show.
Does BeaconFind send my photo locations to a map service?
No. Place names come from a list stored inside the app and the map is drawn from outlines stored inside the app, so finding places makes no network request. You can switch it off under Settings, General, Privacy (Read photo locations), and BeaconFind then stores no coordinates or place names for the photos it indexes.
Which BeaconFind tier finds photos by place?
Every tier, including Lite. Reading locations needs no AI model, so it costs almost nothing while indexing.