Pause sharing without telling anyone
In the version 27 releases, Apple added a way to pause sharing your location with someone without removing them from your sharing-with list—and without them knowing. Here’s how to pause sharing:
- Select a person with whom you’re sharing your location.
- Tap or click the More button, and choose Hide Location.
- Find My explains that you stop sending your location for the remainder of the day.
- The other party is not notified when you pause, stop or resume sharing. They see only that no location was found.
- Tap or click Hide to continue, or Not Now to keep sharing.
The Location field shows “Unhide Location” until the shown time. When I chose to Hide Location at 2:30 p.m., it displayed “tomorrow at 4:00 a.m.” as the end point. If you tap or click Unhide Location, there’s no confirmation step: your location is immediately shared again.
This addition is clearly another tool in the kit for deterring unwanted tracking in abusive situations, where someone’s partner or family member demands they leave tracking on. This allows someone being tracked to go off the radar without it being obvious. For more, see how to check whether someone is tracking you.
Stop sharing altogether
You can completely stop sharing with someone, which removes you from their People list in Find My. They can’t prevent or reverse these. Stop sharing in either of these ways:
- In the info pane in a Messages conversation, tap or click Stop Sharing My Location or Stop Sharing.
- In a native Find My app (or Find People in watchOS 26), tap or click Stop Sharing My Location, Stop Sharing Location, or Stop Sharing.
If you stop sharing, the person remains in your list. You can remove their entry, as below.
You can remove someone from your People list and stop sharing with them or seeing their location. This requires a native Find My app. Here’s how to remove someone:
- In the version 27 releases, select the People view, select a person, then tap or click the More button. Tap or click Remove and confirm.
- In earlier releases, select the People view and select the person. On an iPhone or iPad, tap Remove and confirm. On a Mac, click the Info button, then click Remove and confirm.
- On an iPhone or iPad, you can instead swipe left on a name in the People list and tap the Remove button (iOS 27/iPadOS 27) or Trash button (earlier releases).
- On a Mac, click the People button and Control-click/right-click the person’s entry. In macOS 27, choose Remove Friend; in earlier versions, choose Remove Name. The person is removed immediately without additional prompting.
Ask someone else to share
You can use the Messages app to request that someone share their location with you. This is handy for a less sophisticated user who doesn’t know how to initiate sharing, or in situations where you want to message someone and ask them to share at the same time: they can read your message and then tap to share without going through additional hoops.
You can prevent receiving these requests by disabling Allow Friend Requests in a native Find My app on the Me tab or pane.
On an iPhone, iPad, or Mac running Tahoe or later, in any conversation in Messages, tap or click the avatar at the top of the view; on a Mac running Sequoia or earlier, click the Info button at the upper-right corner. Tap or click Request Location. This creates a request within Messages. Tap the Send button or press Return to transfer the request, and the other person can opt to Share and choose a duration.
There’s an alternative method on an iPhone or iPad in a conversation in Messages: Tap the Plus button, choose Location, tap Request, and tap the Send button.
If you’re already sharing your location with someone who isn’t with you, you can also use a native Find My app, view the person’s details, and tap or click Send Request.
If you’re on the accepting side of that equation, Messages now mediates your response. When you select a duration, this generates another message; you can click or tap the Send icon or press Return to transmit.
When you are asked to reciprocate
The Find My app shows an entry for each person actively sharing their location with you in the People view. For time-limited sharing, their pictures are overlaid with a little clock.
When you share your location with someone else or vice versa, Find My posts an alert, but the party being shared with doesn’t have to accept it; the sharing party is just added to their Find My list.
However, if that person (you or someone else) isn’t someone the recipient already shares their location with, Find My prompts for reciprocation. (That is, if you share to someone and they don’t, they will be prompted to share with you; if they share to you and you don’t, you’ll be prompted to share with them.)
You can choose to mirror a shared location via a notification. Tap or click the notification, then choose the duration. If you ignore or dismiss the notification, you can also use the Find My app, where the notification appears in the People list with the same message. Similarly, tap or click Don’t Share or tap or click Share to choose a duration from the pop-up menu.
You can’t reciprocate on an Apple Watch.
If the person doesn’t follow you, you can use the same methods in Request Sharing from Someone to ask again.
Where to get help
There are many organizations beyond law enforcement eager to help people trapped in situations of domestic abuse or child subject to violence and an unsafe environment. For adults in the United States, that includes the National Domestic Violence Hotline; for children or those concerned about their welfare in the United States and Canada, the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline.
For those being stalked, one starting point is Safehope. It’s more likely you will need the help of police or federal authorities. Local police departments have their own paths to navigate, but for online or cyber stalking, it may be better to start with the FBI.
If the person you are worried about may be watching your device, use one they cannot see. Removing a tracker or turning off sharing can be noticed, and advocates warn that it can make a situation worse rather than better, so it is worth talking to someone before you act.
