In addition to just meeting up with friends, sharing your iPhone’s location can help you find your phone if you lose it. It can also help keep you safe in potentially dangerous situations, such as when meeting a seller from an online marketplace. Plus, with many parents sending their kids off to college for the first time this fall, using them the right way can be an option to help put their minds at ease back in the school season.
The best feature about sharing your location is that no one can view it without your permission. This means that someone else will not be able to access your site unless you provide them with this access.
Even when you share your location with someone, you can stop sharing it at any time in your iPhone settings, which is another great reason to learn how to do it.
Before you share your location, you must enable location services, which is something that many people keep disabled for privacy reasons. To turn on location services, go to your iPhone settings, select Privacy and then tap on Location Services, you can turn them on and off on this page.
Before you can actually share your location with others, you need to give your phone permission to do so. Go to Settings, tap on Apple ID or your name at the top of the screen, then Find My. Toggle Share My Location to the On position.
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Before you can actually share your location with others, you need to give your phone permission to do so. Go to Settings, tap apple id or your name at the top of the screen, then Find My. Toggle Share My Location to On.
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You must enable Share My Location in your settings before you share it with others through an app like Find My or others.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
Open the Find My app.
If for some ridiculous reason you can’t find it easily, just go to the app library by swiping right on your home screen, and type Find My in the search bar.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
From the bottom of the screen inside the Find My app, choose People to open this tab.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
Click on + (Plus) Sign up to see what options you have for location sharing. Select Share my location.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
If you share your location with someone in your contact list, just enter their name to search for them. Otherwise, enter their phone number to submit your location.
Once you select someone, hit send.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
Select the time option that best suits your needs. You can choose to share your location with the other person for one hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.
Photo: Maria Diaz/ZDNET
Other ways to share your location on iPhone
While Find My can be best suited for many reasons when you want to share your location with someone else, there are a few other ways to share your location from your iPhone that may be more suitable for different situations. Sharing your location is also available through Family Sharing, with a specific contact, via Whatsapp, or using Google Maps.
Step 1: Open your contact list
You can view your contacts either through the Phone app or through the Contacts app.
Step 2: Choose the contact and select Share my location
Choose the contact you want to share your location with from your contact book. Once you click on their name to view the contact card, scroll down until you see Share my location.
After following these steps, you will have the option to choose how long you want to share your location with, as in the previous method.
If you use Family Sharing for things like Apple TV+ subscriptions, iCloud, etc., you probably already have family members added to your account. Here’s how to share your location with your family members.
Step 1: Go to Settings and tap on your name
To access Family Sharing, go to your iPhone settings, then tap your name at the top of the screen.
Step 2: Choose Family Sharing
Select Family Sharing from the available options.
Step 3: Share the location
You should see all Family Sharing settings on this page. Choose Share Location from the list of options.
Step 4: Turn on Share My Location
Once you click Share my location, the following page will appear where you can select to share my location by toggling it on.
Step 5: Tell your family members
Now that you have enabled location sharing with your family members, your iPhone will give you the option to tell them via text messages. This will send a text message to your family containing your location information.
Find the chat you want to share your location in. If you don’t have a chat open with the person you’re looking to send your location to, simply start a new chat.
Step 2: Tap on + sign and choose Share Location
Tap on the + (plus) sign in the chat to open a menu of actions you can use within the chat. Select Share My Location.
If you want to check if you are currently sharing your location with anyone on Whatsapp, you can check the Settings within the Whatsapp app and choosing Privacy. This will show you a list of contacts you’re currently sharing your location with.
Find the chat you want to share your location in. If you don’t have a chat open with the person you’re looking to send your location to, simply start a new chat.
Step 2: Tap on + sign and choose Share Location
Tap on the + (plus) sign in the chat to open a menu of actions you can use within the chat. Select Share My Location.
If you want to check if you are currently sharing your location with anyone on Whatsapp, you can check the Settings within the Whatsapp app and choosing Privacy. This will show you a list of contacts you’re currently sharing your location with.
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Find the chat you want to share your location in. If you don’t have an open conversation with the person you want to send your location to, just start a new one.
Step 2: Tap on the + sign and choose Share Location
Tap the + (plus) sign in the chat to open a list of actions you can use in the chat. Select Share my location.
If you want to check if you are currently sharing your location with anyone on Whatsapp, you can check the settings within the Whatsapp app and choose Privacy. This will show you the list of contacts you are currently sharing your location with.
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There’s also a cool shortcut to sharing your location on Google Maps: when you take a screenshot of the map on the app, a little popup appears asking you if you’d like to share your location.
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Google Maps makes it pretty easy to share your location with your contacts, especially if they also use the same navigation app.
When you’re on Google Maps, simply tapping on your profile icon on the top right corner of the screen will open your options where you can choose Share Your Location. Then, select a contact and pick for how long you want to share your location.
There’s also a cool shortcut to sharing your location on Google Maps: when you take a screenshot of the map on the app, a little popup appears asking you if you’d like to share your location.
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Google Maps makes it very easy to share your location with your contacts, especially if they are also using the same navigation app.
When you’re on Google Maps, just tap on your profile icon in the top right corner of the screen to open up your options where you can choose to share your location. Next, select a contact and choose how long you want to share your location.
There’s also a great shortcut to sharing your location on Google Maps: when you take a file screenshot From the map on the app, a small popup appears asking if you’d like to share your location.
Instructions
Will someone know my location if my iPhone battery runs out?
In an emergency, you can turn on Send your last location on the Find My app, and this will save your location for about 24 hours in case your phone battery runs out.
To stop sharing your location so that no one else can see it, you can go to their contact card and scroll down to where it says Stop Sharing Location and tap on that.
If you share your location via Family Sharing or Find My or simply want to stop sharing your location completely, just follow these steps:
Go to your iPhone settings
Select Privacy
Click on Site Services
Choose to share my location
Turn off Share My Location
Can I add names to recurring sites?
Find My also lets you name your different locations, which is useful for places you visit often. You can do this by opening Find My, then:
select me
Go to Edit Site Name
Select one of the name options or add a Custom Label
Why can’t I share my location on my iPhone?
If you can’t successfully share your location with others, you probably need to turn on Share My Location in your settings. Just follow these steps:
Go to settings
Click on your name
Select Find My
Enable Share My Location
Can I share the ETA with someone?
If you use navigation and want to send someone you meet with an estimated time of arrival, Apple Maps supports you.
To share your ETA, tap your route information at the bottom of the screen and select Share ETA. Then choose someone to send the ETA. You can also simply ask Siri, “Share ETA,” whenever Navigation is on.
Apple also allows users to automatically set up a contact to receive an ETA any time you begin navigating to this site. This can come in very handy if you’re picking up kids with their own phones, so they always know what time you’re coming in. To do this, add the site to favorites, and choose a contact to receive the ETA. They will receive it when you start step-by-step navigation to this site.