How to share iphone location with family

You can choose who can find your location and how long to share your location with Google Location Sharing.

Tip: Other Google products may also allow you to share a one-time location with others. 

Location Sharing availability

Share your location

Share with a person who has a Google Account

Share with a person who doesn’t have a Google Account

Stop sharing

Share your estimated time of arrival

How to share iphone location with family

Get someone’s location

Find someone's location

Ask for someone’s location

After you ask for your contact’s location, they get your email address, a notification and can:

  • View your profile to verify who you are.
  • Share their location with you.
  • Ignore your request.
  • Block you. You can't ask for their location anymore.

Hide or show someone's location

Hide someone's location

If you don’t want someone’s real-time location on your map, you can hide it. You can turn their location back on at any time.

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Maps app​ .
  2. On the map, tap their icon.
  3. At the bottom, tap More
    How to share iphone location with family
    .
  4. Tap Hide from map.

Tip: You can permanently block someone’s location from your map. Learn how to block another person’s account.

Turn on someone’s location you’ve hidden

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Family Sharing opens several new possibilities like sharing purchases, subscriptions, and setting up kids’ Apple Watch. It also lets you effortlessly share your location with other family members. This helps you ensure that kids are in the right place, locate family members’ devices, and more.

Let us get straight in and show you how to share your location with others through Family Sharing.

  • How to share your current location through Family Sharing
  • What happens after you share the location with a Family Member?
  • How to stop sharing your location through Family Sharing
  1. Open the Settings app and tap Privacy.
  2. Tap Location Services.

    How to share iphone location with family

  3. Tap Share My Location.
  4. First, make sure the toggle for Share My Location is green. Next, under FAMILY, tap a member’s name.
  5. Finally, tap Share My Location.

    How to share iphone location with family

After this, the family member will get a notification that reads ‘John started sharing location with you. Do you want to share yours?‘ If they long-press on the notification, a popup with useful options comes up. They can choose to share the location with you as well, or tap Don’t Share. If they tap the notification, it opens in the Find My app with the same popup and options.

How to share iphone location with family

Once you share your location, the family member can see your device location in Find My app on their device running iOS 13 or later or Apple Watch with watchOS 6 or later. If they are using iOS 12 or any previous version up to iOS 8, they will have to use the Find My iOS app.

How to share iphone location with family

Tip: For members who do not share their location, tapping on their device in Find My app will not load the map. You will also see the text ‘Not sharing location.’

You can use the Find My app to share location for short durations. Our post on how to use the Find My app will tell you about this and more.

Apple clearly says that ‘by default, the device that you used to sign in to Family Sharing is the one that shares your location.’ In our example, the location is shared via the iPhone. But if desired, my iPad or my other iPhone (using the same Apple ID) can be used to share the location instead. Here’s how.

  1. Open the Settings app on your other iPad or iPhone.
  2. Tap PrivacyLocation ServicesShare My Location.

    How to share iphone location with family

  3. Tap Use This iPad as My Location. After this, next to My Location, you will see ‘This Device.’

    How to share iphone location with family

Location sharing is helpful. When the family organizer enables location sharing in Family Sharing, his/her location is automatically shared with all family members. However, if you want privacy, Apple makes it effortless to disable location sharing with family members.

How to stop sharing your location through Family Sharing

  1. Open the Settings app. Scroll down and tap Privacy.
  2. Tap Location ServicesShare My Location.
  3. Tap the desired family member name and choose Stop Sharing My Location.

    How to share iphone location with family

Note: If you turn off the toggle for Share My Location (shown above FAMILY in step 2), then it hides your location from all your family members as well as approved friends.

Signing Off

This is how you can enable and disable location sharing via Family Sharing. It is an incredible feature to know where the people who matter the most (and their expensive devices) are.

You can also share your location via the Messages app with anyone over iMessage. For this, open a person’s conversation and tap the name or profile picture. Next, tap info and choose to Share My Current Location or Share My Location.

Finally, I agree that iPhones and iPads are easy to carry and almost always with you. Thus it makes better sense to share your location using these. But that doesn’t mean that you can not share your location via your Mac. For this, open System Preferences and click on Family Sharing. Next, from the left sidebar, click on Location Sharing and enable or disable it for the desired members.

Read next:

  • Location services always ON on iPhone? Here is a fix
  • How to share your location using Apple Watch
  • How to share Apple Books with family members on iPhone

How to share iphone location with family

iGeeksBlog has affiliate and sponsored partnerships. We may earn commissions on purchases made using our links. However, this doesn’t affect the recommendations our writers make. You can read more about our review and editorial process here.

A self-professed Geek who loves to explore all things Apple. I thoroughly enjoy discovering new hacks, troubleshooting issues, and finding and reviewing the best products and apps currently available. My expertise also includes curating opinionated and honest editorials. If not this, you might find me surfing the web or listening to audiobooks.

How do you track a family members iPhone?

Share locations with family members and locate their lost devices on iPhone.
Go to Settings > [your name] > Family Sharing, then scroll down and tap Location..
Tap the name of a family member you want to share your location with. You can repeat this step for each family member you want to share your location with..

How do I share my location with another iPhone user?

Share your location.
Open the Find My app and select the People tab..
Tap the Add button ..
Select Share My Location..
Enter the name or phone number of the person that you want to share your location with..
Select Send..
Choose to share your location for One Hour, Until End of Day, or Share Indefinitely..

How do I share my location between family members?

Share with a person who has a Google Account.
If you haven't already, add their Gmail address to your Google Contacts..
​On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app and sign in. ... .
Tap your profile picture or initial Location sharing New share ..
Choose how long you want to share your location..

How can I track my daughters iPhone location?

With the Family Orbit iPhone Monitoring Software, you don't need to jailbreak your iPhone or install any app on the child's cell phone. To track your child's device location using iCloud, you just need the iCloud login credentials, and backup must be enabled on the phone.