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.

A timer is a setting the app already ships. It ends on its own, the part people usually want, and every duration below is the vendor's own number.

The durations vendors document

App	What the vendor documents	Page
Find My — when you start sharing	"Choose to share your location for an hour, until end of the day, or indefinitely."	/find-my/
Find My — pause one person	"Tap the name of the person you want to pause sharing your location with. Tap [the More button], then tap Hide Location." And: "When you hide your location, sharing automatically resumes the next day."	/find-my/
Snapchat — Ghost Mode	"Select a timer for how long you want to stay in Ghost Mode (3 hours, 24 hours, or Until Turned Off)."	/snapchat/
Life360 — Bubble	"Choose the duration of your Bubble (up to 6 hours)". "Your Circle members will only see that you're in a Bubble."	/life360/
Google Maps — a new share	"Choose how long you want to share your location." The troubleshooting section names "Until you turn this off" as one of the choices.	/google-maps/

What ends on its own, and what does not

They end differently, so read the small print. Find My's Hide Location resumes by itself the next day; Apple says nothing about what the other person sees while it is on. A Life360 Bubble ends when its timer runs out or it is popped, and Life360 documents that "Your Circle will receive a notification that your bubble has burst and you are now sharing your location again" — and that any Circle member can burst one. Ghost Mode runs until its timer expires or you turn it off.

The generic way

With no timer in the app, the temporary version is the same switch twice. On an iPhone: Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, then either the master switch or one app set to Never — Apple's per-app steps read "Scroll down to find the app. Tap the app and select an option." On Android, the work-profile switch sits at Settings, Location, Location for work profile. Turning it back on is the same path.

What a timer does not stop

A pause is not an eraser. Life360 states that "Turning off Location Sharing stops future updates, but it doesn't delete the location history Life360 has already collected," and Apple states that even with Location Services off, "third-party apps and websites may still use other ways to determine your location" and that location may be used for emergency calls regardless. Snapchat's note is the same: in Ghost Mode "your location will still be shared with Snap, but it won't be visible to anyone else on the Map."

Checked 2026-09-17 against: Apple Support — Share your location with iPhone, Apple Personal Safety User Guide — Find My and location sharing, Snapchat Support — How do I turn on Ghost Mode?, Life360 Support — Life360 Bubbles Feature, Life360 Support — Share My Location, Google Maps Help — Share your real-time location with others in Google Maps (Android), Apple Support — Turn Location Services and GPS on or off on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, Apple Personal Safety User Guide — Manage Location Services settings, Android Enterprise Help — Turn your work profile location on or off · Apple, Snapchat, Life360 and Google Maps help pages, read 2026-09-17

Who can still see you

Off

The app you set the timer in

For the length of the timer, that app stops showing your live position to the people the setting covers.

Still on

Every other app, and the clock

Other apps keep their own permissions, and the timer turns the share back on by itself unless you change it first.

Still visible

The network, and the history

Carrier and IP still place you roughly, and positions already collected stay on the vendor's servers after the timer ends.

Where to go next

Use the real switch

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 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 Does Life360 notify when you turn off location? Not as a notification. Life360's page says that when you turn off Location Sharing, "other members of your Circle will see 'Location Sharing Paused' under your name." Turning the app's location permission off in your phone's settings shows them a "Location permissions off" alert message instead. Question Does Snapchat notify when you turn off location? Not documented. Snapchat's Ghost Mode page does not say whether friends are told; it says only that in Ghost Mode your location "won't be visible to anyone else on the Map." The one notification sentence Snapchat prints runs the other way: "Friends you select aren't notified when you choose them." App guide 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. App guide Snapchat Ghost Mode hides you from friends on Snap Map, and Snapchat documents that your location is still shared with Snap while you are in it. The location permission in your phone's settings is a different switch, and it is the one that stops Snapchat receiving your position at all.