To view your device’s location, those of people in a Family Sharing group, or your items, use the Find My app on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch, or the Find Devices app in watchOS 26 or earlier or on iCloud.com. By activating Find My, you’re signed in to the app on all those operating systems and on iCloud.com. Each view in the iPhone, iPad, and Mac Find My app provides access to a different category of location-finding.
The map in each view includes typical actions, such as zooming in and out, switching to satellite view, and switching to 2D view. The icons, such as the Choose Map and 3D view buttons, appear the same as in Apple Maps.
Those Find My views are separate apps on an Apple Watch running watchOS 26 or earlier: Find People, Find Devices, and Find Items. If I mention a view, find the app in watchOS 26 or use Find My in watchOS 27.
You can add a Find My widget to the Home screen or Notifications Center to see people and devices without opening the app.
The three status labels
For each category—People, Devices, and Items—Find My shows the last time a location was updated in the list: to the right of the item on an iPhone/iPad and under the item on a Mac, Apple Watch, and (for devices) on iCloud.com. It also displays this information in the detail view for the selected item.
Here’s what the status messages mean:
- Live: Devices can provide a continuous stream of location information in the right circumstances. You can watch someone walk down a street or see their train move across the landscape. (Frankly, a little creepy, even though it’s done with permission?)
- Now: If live updates aren’t possible due to battery, location, connectivity, or operating system version, Now is the second-best. It indicates an update within the last minute.
- Time duration: Find My shows X minutes ago or a specific date and time for the last location update.
Selecting an entry
Starting with the version 27 releases, you select an entry by tapping or clicking it. This reveals slightly more information, such as a Directions button or a Play button to play a sound. Tap or click the More button to reveal the sheet of actions for that category.
Before the version 27 releases, Apple had two distinct methods for selecting an item from the people, devices, or items list: one for the Find My apps on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch; another for the Mac Find My app.
In iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and watchOS 26 and earlier, tapping an entry selects it and causes its sheet to appear. In macOS 26 and earlier, click the item, then click the Info button to reveal the sheet. macOS 26 and earlier also let you Control-click/right-click an entry to reveal several menu items; macOS 27 limits these to just Remove and, for People, Add to Favorites or Remove from Favorites.
What iCloud.com cannot do
You can’t track people or items on iCloud.com, only devices (via the Find My link, which takes you to the Find Devices app). However, iCloud.com’s Find Devices web app is useful for one purpose: when a device is missing or stolen, and the person whose device it is lacks access to Find My on any of their devices. See how to find a lost iPhone or Mac.
