How to Remove Photos from Google My Business

A picture on your Google Business Profile can be worth a thousand words, but sometimes you don't want them to say anything at all. Whether it's an outdated photo of your storefront, a blurry shot from a customer, or a picture that simply doesn't reflect your brand, knowing how to remove it is essential. This guide walks you through the exact steps for removing photos you've uploaded and flagging customer photos for removal, giving you more control over your business's first impression.

Why Is Managing Your Google Business Photos So Important?

Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business or GMB) is often the first interaction a potential customer has with your brand. Think of it as your digital storefront. High-quality, relevant, and appealing photos can significantly increase engagement, drive clicks to your website, and bring more customers through your door. Conversely, photos that are outdated, low-quality, misleading, or just unflattering can do the opposite. They can sow confusion, create a poor first impression, and even deter potential customers.

Common reasons you might need to remove a photo include:

• Outdated Information: The photo shows old branding, an old menu, a previous location, or seasonal decorations from years ago.
• Poor Quality: The image is blurry, poorly lit, taken at a bad angle, or just plain unprofessional.
• Inaccuracy: A customer posts a photo of the wrong business or a product you don't sell.
• Negative or Unfair Representation: The photo highlights a temporary mess, captures an unflattering moment, or was posted maliciously by a competitor or disgruntled person.

Taking control of your profile’s visuals isn't just about deleting bad pictures, it's about actively curating how the world sees your business. Let's cover the two different types of photos you'll encounter and how to handle each.

Understanding Photo Ownership: Yours vs. Theirs

On your Google Business Profile, photos are split into two main categories, and the removal process is completely different for each.

Photos you've uploaded: These are images that you or someone managing your account explicitly added to your profile. This includes your logo, cover photo, and pictures of your products, team, or location. You have full control over these images and can delete them at any time.

Photos uploaded by customers: These images, also known as user-generated content, are added by anyone with a Google account who wants to share their experience. While this can provide authentic social proof, it also means you might get images you don't want. You cannot directly delete these photos. Instead, you have to request that Google remove them by flagging them as a violation of their policies.

Knowing this distinction is the first step. You can clean up your own photos in minutes, but getting a customer's photo removed requires a different strategy.

How to Remove Photos You Uploaded to Your Business Profile

Let's start with the easy part: removing the photos you've posted yourself. You can do this from either your desktop computer or a mobile device.

On a Desktop Computer:

The interface for managing your Google Business Profile has changed. You no longer use a separate dashboard. Instead, you manage it directly from Google Search or Google Maps.

1. Find Your Profile: Open Google and search for your exact business name. As long as you're logged into the Google account that manages the profile, you'll see a management panel appear right in the search results.
2. Go to Your Photos: In the management panel, click on "Edit profile," then select the "Photos" tab at the top. You might also see a shortcut button labeled "Add photo." Clicking that and then selecting the "Photos" tab works too.
3. Select the Photo to Delete: You’ll see a gallery of your photos. You can filter by categories like "By owner" or look through the "All" section. Find and click on the image you want to remove.
4. Delete the Image: Once the photo is open in a larger view, look for a trashcan icon, usually in the top right corner. Click the icon.
5. Confirm Deletion: Google will ask for confirmation. Click "Delete," and the photo will be permanently removed from your profile. That’s it!

On a Mobile Device (Using the Google Maps App):

Managing your profile on the go is just as simple using the Google Maps app, which is the preferred method for mobile management.

1. Open Google Maps: Make sure you’re logged into the account that manages your Business Profile.
2. Access Your Business Profile: Tap your profile picture or initial in the top right corner. From the menu, select "Your Business Profiles." If you manage multiple, choose the correct one.
3. Navigate to Photos: On your profile management screen, tap "Edit profile," and then select "Photos."
4. Find the Photo in Your Gallery: All the images associated with your business will appear. Make sure you’re looking at photos that have been added by you. Usually, they have an owner tag.
5. Select and Delete: Tap on the photo you want to delete to open it. Look for the trashcan icon in the top right corner and tap it. Confirm the deletion, and the photo's gone.

How to Request Removal of Customer Photos

This is where things get trickier. You can't just click a "delete" button on a customer's photo. You need to report the image and explain why it violates Google's policies. Success isn't guaranteed, but it's your only option.

Flagging a Photo for Removal (Desktop and Mobile)

The process for flagging a user-submitted photo is nearly identical whether you're on a computer or using your phone.

1. Find the Photo on Your Public Profile: Search for your business on Google or Google Maps, but this time, view it as a customer would. Click on your photos to bring up the gallery.
2. Locate the Offending Image: Scroll through the photos until you find the one uploaded by a customer that you want to remove. Click on it to open it in a full-screen viewer.
3. Find the Flag Icon: Look in the top right or bottom right corner of the image viewer. You should see a small flag icon or a menu (three vertical dots) that contains an option like "Report a problem" or "Report photo."
4. Choose a Reason for Reporting: A pop-up form will appear asking you to state why you're reporting the photo. The options correspond to Google Maps Photo & Video Policies. You'll see choices like:
   • Off-topic/Not related to this place
   • Spam
   • Hate speech
   • Harassment
   • Privacy concern (e.g., identifiable faces, license plates)
   • Poor quality (severely blurry, dark)
   • Hateful, violent, or inappropriate content
5. Submit Your Report: Select the most accurate reason, add any required details, and click "Submit." After you do, your report is sent, though you may not see a confirmation message.

After you submit, your report goes to Google for review. Be patient. This can take several days or even longer. You likely won't receive a notification about the outcome, the photo will simply be gone if your request is approved. If the photo is still there after a couple of weeks, you can try reporting it again, and you can also request help on the Google Business community forum.

What Kinds of Customer Photos Will Google Actually Remove?

Google evaluates flagged photos against its Prohibited and Restricted Content policies. Simply disliking a photo or thinking it’s "unflattering" is not enough to get it taken down. Your request is much more likely to be successful if the photo clearly violates a policy. Here are the winning arguments:

• Not of your business: The photo is of a different location, a competitor, or someone's home. This is a strong reason. Report it as "Off-topic."
• Not a photo: It is a screenshot, a heavily filtered GIF, a stock photo, or a large block of text used only for advertising.
• Privacy violation: The image shows identifiable people who aren’t staff or shows sensitive information like license plates.
• Pure spam: The photo and any accompanying comments are irrelevant and are only used for advertising, such as including links or phone numbers. Report it under "Spam".
• Illegal, hateful, or explicit content: Anything that shows violence, hate symbols, or obviously inappropriate material will be removed quickly. Report it as "harassment" or "Hate speech".

Reports for "poor quality" (e.g., blurry or dark photos) have a lower success rate, but are still worth a try if the image is particularly bad.

Best Practices for a Great Visual Gallery

Reactive removal is one thing, but a proactive strategy is far better. Use these tips to maintain a high-quality photo gallery and minimize the impact of unwanted images.

• Bury bad photos with good ones: Regularly upload high-quality, professional-looking photos of your business. This pushes older, user-submitted photos down in the gallery, making them much less visible. Aim to add new pictures every couple of months to keep your profile fresh. Take great pictures of your space, the services or products you offer, and your team, using great lighting or hiring a photoshoot.
• Encourage happy customers to share photos: Include a friendly note on your signage, menus, or follow-up emails asking customers to share their favorite snapshots on your Google Business Profile. Great customer photos are powerful social proof that can far outweigh one or two odd ones.
• Set Appealing Cover and Logo Photos: Your cover and logo photos are often the first images people see. Make sure they are up-to-date, high-quality, and representative of your brand.

Final Thoughts

Effectively managing your Google Business Profile photos means more than just removing what you don't like, it's about actively building a visual gallery that accurately represents your brand. By regularly deleting your own outdated photos and consistently flagging user content that violates Google’s policies, you can curate a more professional and inviting digital storefront.

Managing the visual story of your brand on your Google Profile is a crucial first step. We built Postbase to bring that same level of control and simplicity to all your social media platforms. We provide a single, organized place to plan, schedule, and publish the high-quality content - especially videos - that keeps your brand looking sharp across today's most important channels like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube without the headaches of tools built for a different era.