I’m trying to figure out how to know if someone stopped sharing their location with me on an iPhone. Lately, I noticed I can’t see their location anymore, but I’m unsure if it’s a technical issue or if they turned it off. Any tips or advice for confirming this?
If you can’t see their location anymore, there’s a good chance they turned it off. Yeah, they could’ve just stopped sharing with you, but you’d usually get a notification saying, “So-and-so stopped sharing their location with you.” If you didn’t get that, they might’ve disabled their location altogether, put their phone in airplane mode, or turned it off completely. Or maybe their battery died… but let’s be real, how often does that happen when you conveniently can’t see where they are? Just saying.
If you open the Find My app and it says “Location Not Available,” that’s another tell-tale sign. However, glitches happen too—Apple ain’t perfect. Sometimes restarting your phone or having them reenable sharing might fix things, if it is technical. But if they dodgin’—you’ll know. Trust your spidey senses.
It’s pretty straightforward: if you can’t see their location anymore, it’s likely a choice they made rather than a tech mishap. While @sonhadordobosque is right about “Location Not Available” popping up in Find My, you won’t always get a notification if someone stops sharing specifically with you. Apple’s notifications for this can be spotty at best. So don’t solely rely on that.
Another thing to consider—people can pause location sharing temporarily using features like “Hide My Location” or by enabling Low Power Mode. Low Power Mode sometimes messes with background features like constant location updates. They could also have set up a Focus Mode, like Do Not Disturb, which might limit what you see. It doesn’t necessarily mean their location sharing is off, but it appears that way.
And here’s a suspicion-fueling tip: check if they’re still active online. Are you seeing them update statuses, post stories, or respond to texts/DMs? If they’re clearly using their phone but their location’s unavailable, it’s probably deliberate.
Lastly, there’s always the possibility that the settings were accidentally switched off. People tweak privacy settings all the time and forget about it. If you trust them enough, just ask directly—yeah, I know, Revolutionary Idea™. But tbh, if they’re intentionally hiding, that’s a whole other convo to have.