Lots of new features are coming with the iOS 27 update for iPhone, including exciting photography features like spatial cropping and improved cleaning, the ability to ask questions about visual content, a smarter Siri assistant, improved parental controls, and much more. Some relate to Apple’s security features, including the Find My app. This includes upgrades to Find My for Apple Watch, including a new map interface with instructions for a unified experience. But one update in particular lets you hide your location from someone without them knowing you’re doing it. This may sound nefarious, but there are actually practical uses for it.
While this isn’t a feature you’d want your tween or teen using to trick you into thinking they’re safe at a friend’s house when they’re really at the mall, it’s a feature you can turn on temporarily for good reason. Maybe it’s while you’re gathering supplies for a surprise birthday party, or maybe you’re on your way to an impromptu visit home and don’t want Mom and Dad to know you’re coming. Conversely, you can also temporarily enable location sharing when you only need to share your location with someone for a limited time, such as with a group of friends while you’re on vacation or with colleagues at a trade show.
How does hiding my location work?
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The new Hide My Location option now appears in the Find My app, allowing you to temporarily pause your location sharing for certain people. Most notable is that the person(s) will not receive a notification informing them that you have done this. They will be none the wiser. Rather than always sharing your location, you can also choose to share your location with someone for a custom duration, selecting the number of days, hours, and/or even minutes using rolling dials. You can select a period from 15 minutes to 30 days at a time. Although set durations are already available in iOS 26, there are only three presets: one hour, until the end of the day, and indefinitely. This update gives you more control.
Once you start sharing from a device like the iPhone 17 Pro, your location is visible to that person for the duration you set. Once the time has elapsed, you are notified that location sharing with that person is complete. When you hide your location, your movements are immediately hidden. If they search for you, all they’ll see is “No locations found.” While you can always stop sharing completely in the Find My app, this doesn’t delete your sharing settings with that person. Consider this a short break instead of a more permanent removal of location sharing privileges.
Why would you hide your location
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When would this feature be useful? Let’s say you’re buying anniversary gifts but don’t want your spouse to know. Seeing you at the local jewelry store is somewhat of an eye-opener to what’s going on. With kids, why ruin the surprise birthday party, or wait in line to get them tickets to that concert they’ve been dying to see, risking them seeing your location and finding out? Chances are you don’t use this feature often. But it can save you from spoiling the surprise party, the big Christmas present or the unexpected visit.
Conversely, the ability to share your location with someone only for a custom amount of time is useful, as is the unified view with Maps on Apple Watch, which means you don’t even have to whip out your phone to the person or item you’re looking for. Let’s say you’re traveling with friends or to a busy amusement park. You can keep tabs on everyone’s location during the day or for the duration of the trip, then turn it off afterward. Maybe your child is with a babysitter for the weekend and you want to give them permission to track your child’s location just while they do their job. iOS 27 is currently available in developer beta, with public beta expected in July 2026 and a full release by September.
