How To See Shared Location On iPhone: A Simple Guide For Families

Location sharing is perhaps one of the most useful tools for staying connected to friends and family and ensuring safety. While you shouldn’t share your location with the wrong people, letting those who love you see where you are at all times reduces panic and provides quick action during emergencies. 

The best part is that Apple has made it easy to view your family’s location on your iPhone. However, it can be a bit tricky if you are unfamiliar with the process. So, allow us to help you out. In the following sections, we’re providing step-by-step instructions on using Find My, Family Sharing, and more to see your relative’s locations. 

#1 Using the Find My App to See Shared Location

This is the go-to method to see shared locations on iPhone, especially if you and everyone you want to keep tabs on uses an iPhone (or other Apple products for that matter). Find My app works with iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. However, you need to enable location sharing on your smartphone by following these steps for this app to work properly:

1. Head to Settings. 
2. Go to Privacy & Security.
3. Tap Location Services.
4. Ensure it’s enabled by checking whether the toggle is green. Tap it if it’s gray to turn it on.
5. Select Share My Location and enable it.

After that, you can view people’s shared locations in Find My by following the steps below:

1. Open the Find My app. This may be on your phone’s homepage or tucked away in the background. So, search for it if you don’t see it on your homepage(s).
2. Tap the People tab.
3. Select the person whose location you want to see.

Alternatively, everyone who is sharing their location with you will appear on the map located on the aforementioned People tab. Hit the contact’s name to see more information about them and get directions to their current location. 

Regardless of how you get there, the Find My app updates its location in real-time, ensuring excellent accuracy.

The app also gives you the option to set up location notifications for certain contacts — parents tend to use this feature for their children! Just follow these steps:

1. From the Contact’s screen. 
2. Tap Add found under the Notifications heading. 
3. Select Notify Me

You can choose to receive alerts when someone arrives somewhere, leaves somewhere, or isn’t somewhere. Plus, you can choose to alert just one or every time. However, choosing the latter means the other person will need to consent to it.

#2 Viewing Shared Locations in iMessage

Despite the above method being the primary option, you don’t have to open the Find My app to see somebody’s location on your iPhone. Instead, you can see it directly in iMessage.

For this to work, however, you and the other person must be signed into iCloud. Follow these steps to do so if you aren’t already:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap your name.
3. Hit iCloud.
4. Enter your Apple ID and password.
5. Enter your phone’s four-digit passcode if prompted.

Once you’ve signed in and ensured the other person is signed in, you can view someone’s location in iMessage by doing the following:

1. Launch the iMessage application. 
2. Select the conversation with the person who shared their location with you.
3. Tap the person’s name at the top of the screen.
4. Hit Info to open the shared location map.

When people send their location to you via iMessage, you’ll receive a notification. So, you can simply click on this notification to find their location. But if you miss the alert, the above three steps work wonders!

Keep in mind that if somebody has chosen to share their current location once via iMessage, you’ll only see that current location. It will not update in real-time as they walk around. However, they do have the option to send their live location for an hour, until the end of the day, or forever.

#3 Checking Location Through Family Sharing

Family Sharing is a native iPhone app that lets you and up to five others (family members, hence the name) share access to various services, including their real-time locations. Once you’ve set it up and added people to your family, you’ll be able to access their locations at any time, ensuring it’s easy to track their whereabouts.

If you haven’t set up Family Sharing yet, follow these steps to get started:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap your name.
3. Select Family Sharing.
4. Choose Set Up Your Family.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions to set the group up and invite your family members.

After that, you can see a family member’s location through Family Sharing by following these simple steps:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Select your name.
3. Go to Family Sharing.
4. Choose Location Sharing to see who’s sharing their location with you/the family group.
5. Look at the map to find out where your relatives are.

#4 Asking Someone to Share Their Location

If the person you want to track isn’t currently sharing their location with you, the only way to see it is to request it. While you can just send them a message and let them do all the work, it’s easier to request their location via one of the means we’ve mentioned above. Here’s how you do it:

Through Messages

1. Open Messages.
2. Start a chat with the person you want to request a location from.
3. Hit the Plus icon in the bottom-left corner.
4. Tap Location.
5. Select Request from the map that appears at the bottom of your screen.
6. Add a message with the Location Request.
7. Hit Send.

Through Find My

1. Open the Find My application.
2. Tap on the People tab.
3. Select the relevant person.
4. Hit Ask to Follow Location to send them a request.

Troubleshooting Location Sharing Issues

While location sharing will go smoothly nine times out of ten, you need to know how to fix it if things go awry. Whether you’re meeting up with friends or trying to see where your child has gone after school, repairing location sharing quickly is imperative. The table below outlines seven common problems and their typical solutions to ensure you’re back up and running in no time.

Disabled location services	Ask the person to go to their phone’s settings and turn the toggle next to on.
No app permissions	Ask the other person to ensure the app (Find My, Family Sharing, or iMessage, for example) has permission to see their location by going to >  and choosing or on the relevant app.
Low Power Mode/Airplane Mode	Both you and your friend/relative need to disable Low Power Mode and Airplane Mode for location-sharing services to work. You can turn off both via the iPhone’s Control Center.
Poor network connection	Both you and your friend/relative need to have a strong, stable network connection for location-sharing services to work. Move to a new location or turn your/their phone off and on again.
Find My iPhone misconfiguration	Ask the person to set up Find My iPhone properly by heading to > > >.
Family Sharing misconfiguration	Ask the person to turn Family Sharing on by going to > >.
Outdated software	Make sure you and the other person have the latest version of iOS installed on your phone. To check, head to > >. If there’s an update available, just tap.

The Bottom Line

Location tracking is the ticket to improving safety and communication with your friends and families. And as you now know, viewing shared locations on Find My, iMessage, and Family Message is wonderfully easy, even if you need to ask for your friend’s location first! Simply open the relevant app and follow the steps outlined above. You’ll be well on your way to that party or checking up on your children.

Want a More Advanced Location Sharing Solution? Try Family Orbit!

iPhone’s native location tracking abilities may be enough for friends and older families, but for those with young children who are just starting to explore the big wide world, Family Orbit is a must-have. It’s an advanced family tracking solution that offers geo-fencing, real-time location updates, and message monitoring for holistic safety. It’s the all-in-one solution for keeping tabs on your children’s online activity and their real-time whereabouts.