Share your location with your family

With Family Sharing, you can share your location with family members in the Find My app or the Messages app. You can also help family members locate their missing device.

How it works

Share your location with a family member

Get notifications about a family member's location

Choose which device to share your location from

Help find a missing device

Share your location in Messages or Maps

How it works

The family organizer sets up location sharing in Family Sharing settings. After location sharing is turned on, the organizer's location is automatically shared with everyone in the family group, and any new family members who are added later. Then each family member can choose whether or not to share their location. When you agree to share, your family members see your location in the Find My app and Messages. In watchOS 6 or later, they can also see your location in the Find People app.

With location sharing enabled, if your device is lost or stolen, you can ask a family member to use the Find My app to help you locate it.

Location sharing isn't supported in South Korea and might be unavailable in other regions due to local laws.

Share your location with a family member

You can share your location in Settings or the Find My app, and you can stop sharing your location at any time.

If you already set up a Family Sharing group

In iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 or later:

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings.

  2. Tap Family.

  3. Tap Location Sharing.

  4. Under Share Your Location With, tap to choose which family members to share your location with.

In iOS 15 or iPadOS 15 or earlier:

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings.

  2. Tap your name, then tap Family Sharing.

  3. Tap Location Sharing.

  4. Tap Share My Location.

If you haven't set up Family Sharing yet

  1. On your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, open the Find My app.

  2. Tap or click the People tab.

  3. Select a family member's name, then select it again to see the menu.

  4. Tap or click Share My Location.

Get notifications about a family member's location

If you want to know when a friend or family member has arrived at or left a location, or if they aren't at a particular place during a specific time window, you can set up recurring notifications.

Set up recurring location-based notifications

Choose which device to share your location from

You can share your location from a different device. For example, if you share your location from an iPad, you can share your location from an iPhone that you own instead.

  1. On the iPhone or iPad that you want to share your location from, open the Settings app.

  2. Tap your name.

  3. Tap Find My.

  4. Tap Use this [device] as My Location.

Help find a missing device

If you turned on Find My for your device and you share your location with your Family Sharing group, your family can help you locate your device if it goes missing. Family members can:

  • See the location and online or offline status of your device.

  • Play a sound on your missing device to help you find it.

  • Put your device in Lost Mode if it was already set up with a passcode.

  • Remotely erase a device.

Learn more about how to find a lost Apple device or Airtag with the Find My app

If you don't share your location, family members can’t access location information about your device. However, family members can still help you. They can check your missing device's online or offline status, play a sound on the device, put the device in Lost Mode, or remotely erase the device.

Share your location in Messages or Maps

In addition to the Find My app, in iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 or later you can share a one-time snapshot of your location in Messages or Maps. You can also share your ETA in the Maps app, or in the Messages app, use Check In to let a friend or family member follow your turn-by-turn directions during a trip.

Learn how to share your location in Messages or Maps

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