With the gamut of tools that let you figure out the location of your friends and family’s whereabout, they indeed can be pretty helpful during an emergency. However, the same tools can become invasive as well, which means it is better to look for ways that will let you turn off location on iPhone without the person knowing.
Typically, when you share a location by enabling the Find My Friends app, or any other similar app, as a matter of fact, your friend receives a small pop-up that makes them aware of your whereabouts.
However, when you disable the same applications, you will let the same person know that you have disabled this facility, which means people will come to know when you enable and disable these apps! Not a pretty sight, though!
Part 1. Why Should You Turn Off Your Location?
There is no doubt that sharing your location at the time of emergency can be helpful, but there will be moments when you will not like everyone to know where you are or where you are heading to.
Before we tell you how you can turn off a location without the other person knowing, it is better to understand why you should do this in the first place.
Here are some of the reasons:
- Not everyone likes to tell the whole world about their whereabouts. It is about your privacy. Many people don’t really feel comfortable sharing their location as it might lead to divulging. For privacy and security purposes, it is highly recommended to turn off your location.
- Here’s another big concern. There are some companies’ apps that tell you to keep your location on so that you can have a better user experience. But hardly do you know that they track your location all the time and then sell sensitive data to third parties. They do this to make extra money. Why would you tell every application that you have on your smartphone about your location? It is better to keep your location off so that companies can stop tracking you.
- The final reason to turn off your location is relatively simple: to save battery life. When you keep the location setting on, your mobile phone keeps on working in the background. Location services will consume battery, and when you find out about it, it will be too late. Your phone will be completely drained.
Part 2. How to Turn Off Your Location Without the Person Knowing?
Now that you know why you should turn off location without the other person knowing, let’s figure out some ways to let you do that.
The tips that we will share are easy to implement. You can try any one of them.
1Turn on Airplane Mode
The fastest way to hide your location right away is by turning on the airplane mode feature. To do this, you will have to open the Control Center. Once done, tap the Airplane logo.
By swiping down the top-right of your phone, you will see the Control Center. If the airplane mode is disabled, it will be displayed in grey color; click it to turn it on.
By doing this, WiFi and cellular connections will be disabled. This will completely stop everyone from seeing your location. One thing to keep in mind is that your iPhone will show the last known location. Therefore, do this trick before you reach or head out from your home to the new location.
By applying this method, your location will be disabled. Another thing that will happen is that you won’t be able to make any calls to anyone. You can enable your WiFi setting, but if your phone has apps like Find My Friends, people will immediately come to know where you are because through WiFi, your location will be shared.
Apply this method only when you are fine not using WiFi or a cellular network. Also, receiving calls or messages will be barred too. Once you are done visiting the location, and you are all set to share your location, all you will have to do is click on the Airplane mode again, and airplane mode will be disabled.
2Share Location from Another Device
Another thing that you can do is pick up someone else’s phone and share their location as yours as a stationary location. This way, your location will remain intact from getting shared by iMessage and Find My App. This method will also send away the message that you are at another location.
You don’t always need to do it with someone else’s device. If you have an iPad at work or office, you can do this through that device as well.
In case some check where you are, they will get to see the location of your iPad and not your actual device. Even if your iPad doesn’t have GPS and works on WiFi, your location will still be shared. Although this is not a full-proof step, for some, this could be close enough to solve the purpose.
Here’s what you need to do.
Step 1: On the other device, click on the “Settings” option.
Step 2: You will see your name appearing on the top; click on that.
Step 3: From the list, search for the “Find My” option and tap on that.
Step 4: You will see the “Use this iPhone as my location” option, click on that, and you are done.
Once you have done that, your iPad or whatever other device you are using will display its location to others. Also, it won’t affect your location history, and neither there will be no gaps.
3Use a Software to Fake GPS Location
If you want to fake your GPS location, here’s an app that will let you do that. Try Tenorshare iAnyGo.
Using this tool, you will be able to change your iPhone’s location to a different location without creating any doubt in anyone’s mind.
Here’s how you need to use Tenorshare iAnyGo to change the location.
Step 1: Tenorshare iAnyGo is desktop software, so you will have to get the software first. Download it and then launch it. Once the software is launched, you will see the “Change Location” setting. You need to click on that.
Step 2: Grab your iPhone whose location you want to hide and connect it to the computer. Unlock it and then hit the enter option to start the process.
Step 3: Now, on the tool, you will see a search box. Enter the address that you would like to show. After that, click on “Start to Modify.”
And that’s about it. Easy way to fake your location!
Part 3. People Can Still Receive Notifications If You Use These Ways
The tips mentioned above definitely work, but somehow or the other, you will end up sending at some location information.
If you don’t want to share your location information at all, the following tips will be ideal for you.
1Turn Off Share My Location
If you don’t want to share another device’s location and want to keep every location hidden from iMessage and Find My Friends, then the best thing you can do is turn off “Share My Location.”
Once you enable this function, no one in your contacts will come to know where you are, and neither will they receive any kind of alert that you have stopped sharing your location.
Here’s how you start to turn off “Share My Location.”
Step 1: Switch on your iPhone and go to the “Settings” option.
Step 2: Your name will appear on the top. Click on that once.
Step 3: Now click on “Find My”.
Step 4: You will see the “Share My Location” option. Toggle it to turn it off.
Once you are comfortable sharing your location, toggle it on. However, one thing to keep in mind is that your timestamp and last known location will still be visible to your contacts.
2Hide on Find My App
Find My App is designed in a way that it is bound to share your location with family members who are using the same app.
To unbale people from seeing your location, you can disable the location sharing option on Find My App.
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Switch on your iPhone and click on the Find My app.
Step 2: Towards the bottom corner, there is the “Me” icon. Click on that, and you will see “Share My Location” and toggle it off. This will switch your location entirely.
Step 3: If there are some people with whom you won’t like to share your location, click on the People tab.
From the member list, click on stop sharing my location to stop sharing your location with that particular person.
3Hide From iMessage Contacts
If you have shared your location with your known ones via the iMessage app, there is a way to disable your location sharing option.
The only problem with this tip is that you will notify the person you have stopped sharing your location with them.
If you are okay with that, here’s what you need to do:
Step 1: Open your iPhone and launch the “Messages” App.
Step 2: Click on a contact that you no longer want to share your location.
Step 3: Click on the info icon.
Step 4: Click on “Stop Sharing My Location”, and it’s done.
Conclusion
There you go. These are the ways you can turn off location on iPhone. A few of the steps will let the other person know that you have turned off the location sharing option. However, most of them won’t.
Try whichever you feel comfortable with. Tenorshare 4UKey somehow turns out to be a legit solution because this will let you fake your location. Nevertheless, all the other tips will work seamlessly as well.
