What still sees you About
Find my switch
TurnOffLocation Apps Find My

App guide

How to turn off location on Find My

Find My has one switch per person, a one-day pause per person, and one master switch for everyone; Messages, Maps and Contacts all reach the same share. Apple's sharing page says the person you stop sharing with is not notified. Apple's safety guide adds that they may notice you have stopped.

Do they get told?Apple's sharing page says the person you stop sharing with won't be notified. Apple's Personal Safety guide adds that people you previously shared with may notice that you've stopped, and that on earlier operating systems they may receive a notification in Messages. Either way, your location disappears from their Find My, Maps, Contacts and Messages.

Stop sharing with one person

inside the Find My app
Path
  1. Find My
  2. People
  3. the person
  4. Stop Sharing My Location

From the vendor’s own page · iOS 17 and later as named on Apple's page (published 2025-12-19), read 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-17 · source: Apple Support — Share your location with iPhone, Apple Personal Safety User Guide — Find My and location sharing

Do they get told?Apple says the person you stop sharing with won't be notified. Apple's Personal Safety guide adds that they may notice you've stopped, and that on earlier operating systems they may receive a notification in Messages.
Who can still see you
Off
That one person
Your location disappears from their Find My, Maps, Contacts and Messages. Everyone else you share with still sees you.
Still on
Your other shares and every app
Only one share changed. Share My Location and Location Services stay on for everything else.
Still visible
The network
Your carrier and any site you open still get a rough position from cell towers and your IP address.

Pause sharing with one person until tomorrow

inside the Find My app
Path
  1. Find My
  2. People
  3. the person
  4. More
  5. Hide Location

From the vendor’s own page · Current iOS as documented in Apple's Personal Safety guide (published September 2026), read 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-17 · source: Apple Personal Safety User Guide — Find My and location sharing

Do they get told?What that person sees while your location is hidden is not documented for Hide Location specifically. Apple does document that sharing automatically resumes the next day, and, for stopping in general, that people you shared with may notice you've stopped.
Who can still see you
Off
That one person, until tomorrow
Your location is hidden from them for the rest of the day. Apple documents that sharing resumes by itself the next day.
Still on
The share itself, and every app
This pauses the share rather than ending it. Location Services and your other shares are unchanged.
Still visible
The network
Your carrier and any site you open still place you roughly by cell tower and IP address.

Hide Location is a pause. To end a share for good, use Stop Sharing My Location above.

Stop sharing from a Messages conversation

inside the Messages app
Path
  1. Messages
  2. the conversation
  3. the name at the top
  4. Stop Sharing

From the vendor’s own page · iOS 17 and later as named on Apple's page (published 2025-12-19), read 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-17 · source: Apple Support — Share your location with iPhone

Do they get told?This reaches the same share as Find My. Apple says the person won't be notified; its Personal Safety guide adds that on earlier operating systems they may receive a notification in Messages.
Who can still see you
Off
That person or group
The share ends for them in Messages, Find My, Maps and Contacts at once.
Still on
Your other shares and every app
Only this share changed. Location Services stays on.
Still visible
The network
Your carrier and any site you open still place you roughly by cell tower and IP address.

Stop sharing with everyone

inside the Find My app
Path
  1. Find My
  2. Me
  3. Share My Location
  4. Off

From the vendor’s own page · iOS 17 and later as named on Apple's page (published 2025-12-19), read 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-17 · source: Apple Support — Share your location with iPhone, Apple Personal Safety User Guide — Find My and location sharing

Do they get told?Apple says the people you stop sharing with won't be notified, and its Personal Safety guide adds that they may notice you've stopped. Your location disappears from their Find My, Maps, Contacts and Messages.
Who can still see you
Off
Everyone you shared with
Every share ends at once, including Family Sharing members who saw your location.
Still on
Your own devices, and every app
Locating your own iPhone and other apps' location access are separate switches and stay on.
Still visible
The network
Your carrier and any site you open still place you roughly by cell tower and IP address.

Take location away from the Find My app

in iPhone Settings
Path
  1. Settings
  2. Privacy & Security
  3. Location Services
  4. Find My
  5. Never

From the vendor’s own page · iOS 14 and later as named on Apple's page (dated 2026-01-14), read 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-17 · source: Apple Support — Turn Location Services and GPS on or off on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Do they get told?What people you share with see when Find My's own access is set to Never is not documented on Apple's Location Services page. What is documented is the switch most people want instead: Share My Location in Find My, which Apple describes above.
Who can still see you
Off
The Find My app on this iPhone
The app can no longer read your position, so it has nothing to share.
Still on
Every other app
This changes one app's permission only. Maps, Messages and everything else keep theirs.
Still visible
The network
Your carrier and any site you open still place you roughly by cell tower and IP address.

Apple's page describes the per-app steps generically; Find My is the app you select at the last step.

Location spoofing, fake-GPS apps and mock-location settings are outside this site on purpose. This page describes the settings the app and your phone provide, and what the vendor documents about them.

If someone is tracking you against your will, turning a setting off may not be the safest first step. Read this first.

Related

Before you tap

Question Does Find My notify when you turn off location? No, and Apple states it in one sentence: "The person that you stop sharing with won't be notified." Apple's Personal Safety guide adds that the people you previously shared with "may notice that you've stopped", and that on earlier operating systems "they may receive a notification in Messages that you stopped sharing." Question How to stop sharing location with one person Not everyone has to come off at once: Find My, Messages, Google Maps, Snapchat and Instagram all have a per-person control. In Find My it is People, the person, Stop Sharing My Location; in Google Maps it is Location sharing, the person, Stop. Apple is the only one of them that states whether that person is notified. Question How to turn off location without notifying It depends on the app, and only Apple and Snapchat answer it in writing. Apple says the person you stop sharing with won't be notified, and its own safety guide adds that they may notice you have stopped; Snapchat says friends you pick for a location setting aren't notified when you choose them. Life360, Google Maps and Instagram document what the other person's screen shows instead, which is not the same promise. Question How to turn off location temporarily Yes, several of these apps ship a timer, and it is the only kind of temporary this site will describe. Find My shares for an hour or until the end of the day and can hide you from one person until the next day; Snapchat's Ghost Mode takes 3 hours, 24 hours or Until Turned Off; a Life360 Bubble runs up to 6 hours. Everywhere else the temporary version is the ordinary switch, turned off and then back on by you. App guide Messages Messages carries two different location switches on two different systems. On iPhone, Messages shares through Find My, and Apple says the person that you stop sharing with won't be notified, while Apple's Personal Safety guide adds that they may notice you've stopped. On Android, Google Messages shares through Google Location Sharing, so stopping the share there stops it for every Google app that uses it. App guide Google Maps Google Maps has three separate location switches. Location sharing sends your live position to people you chose, Timeline keeps a record of where you have been, and the app's location permission in phone settings decides whether Maps can read your position at all. Turning one off leaves the other two on.