It’s easy to feel like you’re constantly being monitored by friends or family members who can see your whereabouts whenever they want thanks to Find My and iMessage location sharing. They may also create alerts to notify them when you arrive or depart from certain areas.
You may simply stop sharing your location with friends or family via the Find My app, but you may not want people to know you’re seeking privacy in some circumstances. You could wish to go off the grid for a while, or you might need to hide your position for another reason without totally turning off your iPhone location sharing.
When you stop sharing your iPhone location with someone, they’ll get a message in the iMessage app, and when you re-share with them, they’ll get another message — so turning off and on sharing isn’t a great technique to conceal your position, or at least not to hide that you’re hiding it.
Remember that turning off location sharing does not hide your location from your mobile phone carrier or from a government agency with a warrant. It simply hides the location of your iPhone from those with whom you typically share it.
There are a few ways to keep your iPhone location hidden from your friends and family without them realising it. If you have a cellular Apple Watch, keep in mind that it can follow your position even if you leave your iPhone at home. You don’t have to leave your Apple AirTags behind since only you can see where they are.
The Easiest Way to Hide the Location of Your iPhone
Turning on Airplane mode by accessing Control Center and pressing the Airplane emblem is the quickest way to disguise your location.
To quickly conceal your location, swipe down on the top-right of your iPhone and touch the Airplane logo. This will deactivate cellular and WiFi connections, preventing others from tracking your whereabouts. Before you leave for your next trip, check your iPhone for the latest known location.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to make phone calls using this approach. Find My Friends will display others your position if you use WiFi to surf the Internet or use any applications, however it may not be as exact as when you use your cellular connection.
How do I share my location from another device?
Sharing from another iOS device that is in a fixed place is the greatest approach to disguise your whereabouts from the Find My app and iMessage monitoring. This approach might also make it appear as though you are in another location.
You may share an iPad from any place, whether it’s at home or at work. When someone checks, they will still see your second device’s location, but it will not be where you are. Instead, it will display the location of your iPad. Even if the iPad is WiFi-only and lacks GPS, it may still communicate a position through WiFi. It’s not quite as accurate, but it’ll enough for these reasons.
To share your location with someone else using another device;
- On the other hand, Open the Options menu.
- At the top, tap your name.
- Select Find My.
- Select Use This iPhone as My Location from the drop-down menu.
Show Approximate Location & Hide Precise Location
Turning off Precise Whereabouts in the Find My and Messages apps allows you to hide your location from others. If you don’t have an extra iPhone or iPad to broadcast your location from, this is ideal. When you turn off Precise Location, people will be able to see the city you’re in but not your exact address.
- Open the Options menu.
- Choose Privacy, then Location Services.
- Select Find My.
- Make the icon next to “Precise Location” no longer green by tapping it.
- Rep the procedure above for the Messages app and any other apps.
Hide Your Location from iMessage Contacts
If you share your location through the Messages app, you can easily conceal it with a few taps from within the app. Just keep in mind that the Messages app will send an iMessage to your contact notifying them that you have stopped sharing your location.
- Open the Messages App on your phone.
- Choose a conversation with the Contact with whom you don’t want to share your location.
- To the right of your contact’s name, tap on the info symbol.
- Select Stop Sharing My Location from the drop-down menu.
