Is Someone Tracking Your iPhone? How to Check

Start with Safety Check: Settings, Privacy & Security, Safety Check. It lists who you share your location with and which apps can see it, and lets you stop all of it at once. Then check the devices signed in to your Apple ID, because someone who knows your Apple ID password can see your location without you ever sharing it.

The checks, in order

1. Safety Check. Settings, Privacy & Security, Safety Check. “Manage Sharing & Access” walks through the people and apps with access one at a time. “Emergency Reset” stops everything at once. It needs iOS 16 or later.
2. Find My. Open the Find My app and look at People. Everyone listed there can see you if you share with them. The Me tab shows whether Share My Location is on at all.
3. Devices on your Apple ID. Settings, then your name, and scroll to the list of devices. Every device there is signed in as you. One you do not recognise means someone else has your Apple ID, and can open Find My as you.
4. Family Sharing. Settings, your name, Family. Family members can share locations with each other, and a family organiser may have set it up for you.
5. Apps with location access. Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services. Look for apps set to Always that you do not remember installing or do not need.
6. Other sharing apps. Life360, Google Maps location sharing, Snap Map and WhatsApp live location each keep their own list of people who can see you, inside the app.
7. Profiles and device management. Settings, General, VPN & Device Management. A profile you did not install, or a message at the top of Settings saying the iPhone is supervised or managed, means an organisation or another person can control parts of the phone.
8. Your mobile plan. The account holder on a family plan may be able to locate the phones on it through the carrier’s own family locator service. If someone else pays for your line, ask the carrier what is switched on.

Trackers you did not put there

An AirTag or another Find My accessory hidden in a bag or a car is a different problem from your phone’s own location. iPhones warn you when an unknown tracker seems to be moving with you, and recent versions of iOS also warn about compatible trackers made for Android. Keep tracking notifications switched on in the Find My app. The alert can take a while to appear, because it has to see the tracker travelling with you, not just nearby once.

What about spyware?

Hidden tracking software on an iPhone that has not been jailbroken is rare, because iOS does not let one app hide itself or read what others are doing. Most commercial “spy” services for iPhone work a different way: they log in to your iCloud account with your Apple ID password. That is why the password and the device list above matter more than scanning your apps.

Locking it back down

• Change your Apple ID password, and check the trusted phone numbers used for two-factor codes.
• Remove devices you do not recognise from your Apple ID.
• Stop sharing with anyone you did not mean to, in Find My and in each app.
• Turn on Stolen Device Protection, in Settings, Face ID & Passcode.
• Update iOS. It removes most jailbreaks, and with them anything that relied on one.

Stopping apps tracking your location goes further on the app side, and can my employer track my location? covers work phones.

Where PinDrift fits

Changing the location your phone reports is not a fix for someone tracking you. If a person can see your location, remove their access. A location that suddenly shows you somewhere else, on a phone someone is watching closely, can be noticed, and in a dangerous situation that can make things worse rather than better.