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How To Turn Off Location Tracking in Find my Friends

How To Turn Off Location Tracking in Find my Friends

Few apps are as divisive as Find my Friends. It seems to divide opinion between those who think it’s a great way to meet up with friends or keep an eye on what they are doing and those who think it’s an evil spy app. I think it is neither of those. The app is benign. It’s what you do with it that makes it either good or evil. If you have to use the app, you don’t have to be trackable all the time. You can turn off location tracking in Find my Friends.

If you’re using the app to keep friends appraised of where you are and what you’re up to, turning off location tracking when you want a little privacy is easy. If you’re subjected to Find my Friends by anxious parents or distrustful partners, you can still turn off location tracking but will have explaining to do when you get home.

Either way, I’ll show you exactly how to do it in this tutorial.

Turn off location in Find my Friends

Find my Friends began as an Apple app and soon offered an Android version. Turning off location differs between these devices so I’ll show you how to do it on each.

First, it might be useful to know how Find my Friends locates you. The app will primarily use GPS to know where you are. If GPS isn’t available or you turn it off, it will use cell tower information or network router data, depending on what’s available. If you’re using WiFi, it will use router IP location data. If you’re not on WiFi, it will use cell data. So while you can turn GPS off, the app can still find you.

Turn off location in the Find my Friends app

The safest way to go private is to tell the Find my Friends app you don’t want to be tracked for a while. It has a hide function that will stop it reporting your location until you turn it back on again.

  1. Open the Find my Friends app and select Accounts.
  2. Select Hide from Followers and toggle it to on.
  3. Toggle it off when you want to be found again.

Alternatively, you can shut the app down fully to stop it locating you. Each time you shut it down, you will need to sign back in again to enable the location feature. If you don’t sign in, it cannot track you.

If you’re using iPhone, you can also disable location in iCloud too if you like.

  1. Log into iCloud.
  2. Select Find My Friends.
  3. Select Me and toggle Share My Location to off.

Again, you will need to toggle this again once you’re ready to be tracked. Both of these methods will stop anyone being able to see where you are and allow at least a little privacy while you do whatever you need to do.

Turn off GPS

Find my Friends uses GPS data as its primary location tool but doesn’t depend on it entirely. If it isn’t available, it will also use cell and router data to triangulate you. Cell tower data will provide a fairly accurate indicator of where you are down to a couple of dozen feet or so.

If you’re connected to WiFi, the app may use router IP data to identify your location. Routers are given regional IP addresses that can provide an indication of where you are. This is less exact in some areas and more exact in others. It too can be used to indicate where you are.

The easiest way to disable GPS on an iPhone is to use Control Center but you can use menus too.

To turn off GPS on iPhone:

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Select Privacy and Location Services.
  3. Toggle GPS to off.

You can also disable Find my Friends within Location Services or change permissions to While Using if you prefer. Just remember that the app doesn’t depend on GPS along to track you!

You can use the Notification slider in Android to toggle GPS to off or you can do the following.

Turn off GPS in Android:

  1. Select Settings on your Android phone.
  2. Select Security & Location and then Location.
  3. Toggle Location and Google Location History and turn it off.

Again, turning off GPS does not stop Find my Friends from tracking you.

Find my Friends can either be an excellent way for friends to meet up while in the city or something worse. Either way, you do have some control over how much of your life you share. It may not be much but it’s better than nothing!

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Apr 29, 2019

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