Does an exported transcript include your location on iPhone?

A voice recorder that files each note by time and place usually treats a transcript export as another view of the same recording, not a separate, stripped-down document. That means whatever got attached to the recording at the moment you made it tends to travel with the words when they leave the app as a file — which is convenient right up until the transcript is headed somewhere the place should not go.

Where the location comes from in the first place

On a recorder that stamps each note with when and where, the place is read once, around the time you record — a city, a neighbourhood, sometimes a named venue — and attached to that one recording's entry. It is not a live trail and not something checked on a schedule; it is a single label written at the moment of recording, the same way the date and time are.

What actually shows up in each export

Plain text (.txt)

A TXT export commonly lays the title, date, time and location out as plain lines above the transcript, so the file still tells you what it is at a glance. That location line is not a separate step you opted into — it is part of what makes a TXT export self-describing rather than just a block of words with no context.

JSON (.json)

A JSON export keeps the same information as labeled fields instead of plain lines — a field for the title, one for the date, one for the location, and so on, alongside the transcript itself. It is easier for a program to pick apart than a TXT file, but the location is exactly as present; it has simply moved from a line of text to a field with a name.

A full backup

A full backup is one JSON file covering every recording at once, built for restoring a whole library rather than reading a single transcript. It carries the same fields per recording that an individual JSON export does — location included — multiplied across everything in your library. That is exactly what makes a backup useful for restoring, and exactly why it is the wrong file to hand someone as a clean excerpt.

Why this is not the same problem as a photo's hidden GPS data

A photo's location lives in EXIF data — a standard field baked into the JPEG format, invisible on screen, readable only by something that knows to look for it, which is why "strip the location before you send it" became standard advice for photos. A transcript's location is a different kind of thing entirely: it is plain, visible text sitting above the words in a TXT file, or a field with an obvious name in a JSON file. There is nothing to discover here — anyone who opens the file sees it immediately, which is a real difference from a hidden tag, even though the practical outcome, a place going somewhere you did not intend, can look similar from the outside.

Precise or approximate, and why it barely narrows things down

iOS lets an app work with a general area instead of an exact point — an approximate neighbourhood rather than a precise coordinate. That setting changes how exact the label is, not whether one exists. A recording labeled with a neighbourhood rather than a street address is still telling a recipient roughly where you were when you made it, which may be exactly the information a transcript should not be carrying for a particular recipient, regardless of how coarse the label is.

How to send a transcript without the location line

There is no separate toggle on a TXT or JSON export for dropping just the location field while keeping everything else. What does work is choosing a narrower way to hand over the words in the first place: copying the transcript text itself, rather than exporting or sharing the file, pulls out the transcript alone — the title, date and location are header fields that ride along with a file export, not part of the transcript you are copying. Paste that copied text into a new message and the recipient gets the words with no place attached anywhere.

This is the same method worth using whenever a transcript is going to one specific recipient rather than into your own records: copy the excerpt you actually want them to have, rather than exporting or forwarding the full file with everything the app attached to it.

What already exported cannot be undone

A TXT or JSON file you already generated and sent has the location in it, exactly as it was when the file was written — there is no way to reach into a message someone has already received and remove a line from it. And turning off location access going forward changes nothing about a file that already exists; it only stops new recordings from getting a place attached from that point on. If a specific export already went out with a location in it that should not have, the fix is a conversation with whoever received it, not a setting.

How Voice Studio handles this

Voice Studio stamps a new recording with a place at the moment you make it, the same way it stamps one with when — that is part of the free app, not held back for Pro, and it stops entirely if you decline location access. The TXT export lays title, date, time and location above the transcript as plain lines; the JSON export keeps those as separate fields, along with duration, mood and tags; a full backup is one JSON covering every recording's details the same way. Copying the transcript text directly, rather than exporting or sharing the file, leaves those header fields behind and hands over only the words. There is no account, no server of ours and no analytics SDK involved anywhere in this — a location tag lives in that recording's own entry, in the app's own storage, and goes only as far as whichever export you choose to send.

Common questions

Does turning off location access remove the location from a transcript I already exported?

No. Revoking permission only changes recordings made afterward. A file you already exported keeps whatever it was written with at the time, including any location line or field.

Is a transcript's location hidden the way a photo's GPS data is?

No. A photo's location sits in EXIF metadata, invisible until something reads it specifically. A transcript's location is plain text above the words in a TXT export, or a clearly named field in a JSON export — visible to anyone who opens the file.

Can I export a transcript with the location field left out?

Not as a separate option on the TXT or JSON export itself. Copying the transcript text directly, rather than exporting or sharing the file, leaves the location and the other header fields behind and hands over only the words.

Does a full backup include location data too?

Yes. A full backup is one JSON file covering every recording, and it carries the same fields — location included — that an individual JSON export does, for each recording in the library.