How to turn off location services on your iPhone and prevent apps from tracking you

Updated

2021-03-23T20:22:54Z

iPhone XS Max

Turning off location services on your iPhone can save your battery and data, and protect your privacy.
Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
  • You can turn off all location services on your iPhone in the Settings menu.
  • You can also disable location services only for specific iPhone apps or system services.
  • To turn off location sharing with friends or family, you can use the Find My app or iMessage.
  • Visit Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

When you turn off location services on your iPhone, you're disabling them across your device. This can be great to stop location tracking and preserve battery life. But it will cause some difficulties with apps like Find My or Maps.

You also have less extreme and more tailored options, such as turning off location services only for certain apps, or making sure specific people can't track your location.

Here's how to adjust all the location tracking services on your iPhone.

Jamie Friedlander is a freelance writer and editor. Her work has been published in New York Magazine's The Cut, the Chicago Tribune, Racked and Healthline, among other publications. She has a bachelor's degree in English from NYU and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

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