There are many reasons why a person might want to stop sharing their location with family and friends. Disabling location services is a simple process that can easily be reversed if you change your mind and wish to start sharing your location again.
There are two notable places on an iPhone or Apple device where a friend or family member might be able to discover that you’ve stopped sharing your location with them.
- The ‘People’ tab in the Find My App
- Your iMessage text threads
When you stop sharing your location with someone, no notification is sent in the Find My app. However, once you stop sharing your location, anyone trying to locate you in the Find My app will no longer be able to see you in their list of friends, which also indicates a change.
iMessage is another location on your iPhone where you can check to see if someone has stopped sharing their location with you.
Take these steps to see if any of your friends and family have disabled location-sharing services:
- Open the iMessage app on your iPhone or Apple device.
- Locate the most recent conversation with the person whose location you’re trying to access.
- Tap the message icon and click on the person’s contact via their name.
- Click on the map directly above the “Hide Alerts” and “Send Read Receipts” contact settings.
- If there is no map available to click, this means you do not have access to the person’s location.
If you have an ongoing text thread with a person, a message will also appear that states “[name] stopped sharing location.” As the person who stopped sharing their location, the message will read, “You stopped sharing location with [name].”