How to Disable Find My iPhone (And When You Absolutely Should)

Apple’s Find My service will help you locate your iPhone, iPad or other Apple device that has been lost, stolen or simply misplaced. It builds on Apple’s Find My network, which is a crowdsourced system in which other people’s Apple devices use Bluetooth to detect the location of your item, in some cases even when it’s turned off. It then tells you the approximate location of the device.

Although this feature can save your life, there are cases where you need to disable it. Apple primarily recommends turning off Find My before selling, giving away, or trading in your device, as well as if you send it in for repair. This ensures that technicians won’t be hindered by security features and can properly run diagnostics to determine what’s wrong with your device. However, disabling Find My at other times will reduce the security of your phone.

If you sell or give away your device, the process of factory resetting your iPhone (Settings > General > Transfer or reset iPhone > Erase all content and settings) is the easiest way to disable Find My. This will ask for your Apple account password to ensure it’s you who is wiping the device and will automatically disable Find My as part of the reset process.

It’s important to note that turning off Find My also turns off Activation Lock, which links your Apple account to the device. When Activation Lock is enabled, your device cannot be used without entering your Apple account credentials, even if someone resets it to factory settings. This means that someone who steals your iPhone can’t erase it to resell it.

If your phone is lost or stolen, wiping it remotely via Find My or iCloud on a computer will not disable Find My and Activation Lock. These features will continue to protect your device and allow you to track it.

If you don’t plan to factory reset your phone, such as when you send your device in for repair, you will need to turn off Find My manually. Fortunately, it’s simple: go to Settings > (Your name) > Find My. Faucet Find my iPhone then turn it off. This option will be grayed out if stolen device protection is enabled, which is the default since iOS 26.4.

Stolen Device Protection implements additional security measures when your iPhone is away from familiar places, such as your home or workplace. It is designed to protect your data if someone steals your phone and knows your password. Your device will need Face ID or Touch ID to access sensitive information like stored passwords, and this adds a delay before changing crucial settings like your Apple account password.

If you need to disable Find My, you must first disable stolen device protection. Ideally, you should do this at home to avoid the security delays mentioned above. To do this, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Stolen Device Protection and turn it off. To re-enable these features after your device is repaired, follow the same steps to re-enable them.

Find My also lets you share your location with friends and family; if you disable it, it will no longer work. If you’re concerned that a particular friend has access to your location, it’s best to remove their access rather than disabling the entire Find My suite. Open the Find My app, tap the People tab, choose the person and press Stop sharing my location. Unless they’re on an “older operating system,” they won’t be notified that you’ve stopped sharing with them (although they might notice when they no longer see your name in the Find My app). And others won’t know when you check their location using the app.

The most obvious answer is also the most important: once you turn off Find My, you can no longer locate your device through the Apple network. If you lose your iPhone with Find My disabled, you won’t be able to check its location through the Find My app on another of your Apple devices or the iCloud site in a browser.

Find My’s feature suite also includes Lost Fashionwhich allows you to display a personalized message with your number on the screen for anyone who finds it. This will no longer be available once the feature is disabled and Activation Lock will no longer protect the phone either. For all this reason, you should only disable Find My when you send your phone to a trusted repair center and re-enable the feature as soon as you get the phone back.

There is one major scenario in which you should Never Turn off Find My: after losing your device, especially if you receive intimidating messages about it. There are hundreds of stories on Reddit about people who lost their phones and then received messages demanding they turn off Find My. They will threaten to publish the personal data on your phone or make up sad stories saying they want to harm themselves because the phone they bought for their child doesn’t work.

If this happens to you, not remove the device from your Apple account. Because of Activation Lock, your lost phone is useless to someone who has stolen it and is trying to resell it, provided Find My is enabled. You can wipe the phone to know your data is safe, but don’t give these scammers what they want.