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 or Maps app. You can also help family members locate a missing device.

How it works

Share your location with a family member

Receive 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 organiser sets up location sharing in Family Sharing settings. After location sharing has been turned on, the organiser's location will be shared automatically 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 will 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 countries or 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've already set up a Family Sharing group

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app.

  2. Tap Family, then tap Location Sharing.

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

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.

Receive 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're sharing your location from an iPad device, you can choose to share your location from your iPhone instead.

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

  2. Tap your name, then tap Find My.

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

Help find a missing device

If you've turned on Find My for your device and you're sharing 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 has already has a passcode set up on it.

  • Remotely erase a device.

Find out more about how to find a lost Apple device or AirTag with the Find My app

If you aren't sharing 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 your ETA in the Maps app or the Messages app, and use Check In to let a friend or family member follow your turn-by-turn directions during a trip.

Find out how to share your location in Messages or Maps

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