iOS

Most advice covers how you manage your own equipment. It’s incredibly useful to know how other people interact with your stuff when it’s lost or stolen and they find it. This lets you understand how someone might reply to you—by calling, emailing, or posting a note in a neighborhood forum—and what they would see that led them to it.

What a finder sees on an iPhone or Mac

Once the action is sent to an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch:

• If the device is connected to the internet and asleep, the next time it’s woken, a passcode must be entered to gain access.
• If the device is online and in use, the operating system drops the user into the Lock screen where the passcode-entry dialog or keypad is shown along with any message or phone number that was entered when setting up Lost Mode.
• If the device is offline, the next time it accesses any network with an internet connection, the passcode lock is put into place.

After a restart, or when the device is powered up after being shut down, your phone number or email address appears on the screen if you provided it, along with the preset message Apple showed during the lock process.

What a finder sees with an AirTag

Because Find My items lack screens, someone finding one that is not marked as lost can bring up certain information from it as described in how to identify an AirTag you have found. However, if you have marked your item lost, by enabling Share Contact Information, a person finding it can see the phone number or email address you entered when activating that mode.

If you find an item for which the owner hasn’t shared their contact information, or you can’t pull up a webpage associated with the device, you could post a description to find that person. Try any number of places: social networks, college forums, NextDoor, Bluesky, Craigslist, or a piece of paper posted around the neighborhood. Describe loosely where it was found and what it looks like.

Someone could confirm ownership of the found item by providing details only the owner might know, like what it was attached to, part of (like a bike), or found along with (like a handbag).

An owner can also provide good evidence of their identity by:

• Serial number: An AirTag and some third-party devices have serial numbers inscribed in the battery compartment. An owner can pull up a serial number via a Find My app. (See how to identify an AirTag you have found.)
• Phone number: If you can call someone, great, but if they respond via another method (perhaps their phone was stolen!), they can confirm either the last four digits of their number if the item isn’t marked as lost or their entire phone number if it is.
• Play sound: If you’re comfortable meeting up with a potential owner who hasn’t fully convinced you, if you’re within Bluetooth range they can trigger the item to play a sound from any Find My app they possess.

Apple has extra cues for someone near any Find My item (or Google Find Hub tracker) separated from its owner to aid that person in realizing there’s a tracker near them, see what an “AirTag Found Moving With You” alert means.

What a finder sees with AirPods

While marking audio hardware as lost follows the same steps as marking an item lost—providing contact information—someone finding your AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro (all generations), and AirPods Max can obtain information a little more easily.

With any AirPods earbuds, someone can open the case near an unlocked iPhone or iPad. This displays the message that the earbuds are lost, including contact information. With AirPods Max, someone would have to try to pair the headphones with an iPhone or iPad.

Turn on contact info for an item

Under Lost AirTag for Apple AirTags or Lost Item for third-party Find My network accessories, you see Show Contact Info and Share Item Information starting in iOS 18.2/iPadOS 18.2 and 15.2 Sequoia. This also appears for some Apple audio hardware: AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro (all generations), and AirPods Max.

Show Contact Info is the item equivalent of marking a device as lost. For more on Share Item Information, see how to track lost luggage with an AirTag.

Using Show Contact Info effectively marks the item as lost, but because it lacks features available for hardware with a screen, I can see why Apple chose to relabel it.

Here’s how to mark an item or audio hardware as lost on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac:

1. Beneath Lost AirTag, Lost Item, or Lost Accessory, tap or click Show Contact Info. (In macOS 26 and earlier with audio hardware, you can also Control-click/right-click and choose Mark as Lost.)
2. After reading the details about what will happen when you turn on contact info, tap Continue.
3. Audio hardware shows a more lengthy set of info. Tap or click the Close button to back out.

If the item is in Bluetooth range of any of your devices, you receive an error: “Item Is With You” that reads “This feature is only available for items that are lost and not located in close proximity to you.” You cannot proceed and can only tap or click OK.

On an Apple Watch, select your item or supported audio device, tap Lost Mode, and then tap the switch to enable it. You’re then prompted to enter a phone number or email address. (With watchOS 26 or earlier, use the Find Items app for items, and the Find Devices app for audio hardware.)

When an item’s or accessory’s status is updated, you should receive a notification.

When the device comes into proximity with you again—within Bluetooth range of one of your devices—sharing contact information is disabled. If you shared a temporary link, that link becomes inactive at the same time.

The Find My app’s Devices view and the Find Devices web app initially show a zoomed-out map plotting all your devices that are close to you and within reasonable proximity, as with people. If you’re in a Family Sharing group, you can see all devices of members in your group sharing their location with you. That can be quite a few devices. On an Apple Watch, you can only view a list and tap to see a map.

Any iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch you own will appear as a device, along with all Apple and Beats audio devices. Because audio-device tracking has become more useful and differentiated over time, AirPods are covered separately.

The list is organized by person for Family Sharing with you at the top. As with People, each device shows the name assigned to it, a rough location, the last update, and its approximate distance from your location.

Your location is also plotted on the map as a blue dot if you’re near or between any of your devices, as is likely.

Find My doesn’t differentiate devices based on whether they’re located via an internet connection, proximity to your equipment, or the Find My network.

Select a device in the list or on the map, and Find My zooms in to center it in the map, typically showing it within a rectangle shaped by a radius of about 1/4 to 1/2 mile (400 m to 800 m). In the version 27 releases, select the device again to have the map zoom out.

You can take action on the device like this:

• On an iPhone or iPad or macOS 27: Select a device and view the actions available in its sheet. Tap or click the close button in the upper-right corner to return to the full list.
• On macOS 26 or earlier: After selecting a device, click the Info button to the right of the device name in macOS. Click anywhere but in the actions sheet in macOS to dismiss it.
• On an Apple Watch: Tap the device and scroll down for actions. Tap the back arrow button to return to the main view.
• On iCloud.com: A sheet appears in the upper-left corner of the webpage when you select a device.

Only the Directions options and the Notifications label (with different options) also appear in the People View.

Here’s what you can view or select from in Devices:

• Play Sound: See how to play a sound on a lost device.
• Directions: See how to play a sound on a lost device.
• Notifications: See how to get Find My alerts.
• Lost Mode/Mark As Lost: See how to mark an iPhone as lost.
• Erase/Erase This Device: See how to erase a lost iPhone or Mac remotely.

The top of the Find My sheet of actions shows a graphical depiction of the battery level for an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac laptop. Audio devices’ battery levels are not displayed.

Find My shows the device’s location on the map as a dot with its model icon above it. The dot is the center of a blue-shaded area if a device can be pinpointed; otherwise, the shaded area is larger and green. The shading radius indicates the level of confidence in the location.

Devices are listed even if they haven’t connected for months—or years! If it’s been longer than 24 hours, they appear as “No location found.” (For the full status rundown, see how to read the Find My app’s status labels.)

To remove old devices, see how Activation Lock protects a lost or stolen device.

Find a device you cannot reach

Here’s how to help someone else find their lost device—or find your own when you don’t have one of your devices at hand:

• Family Sharing: Use the Find My app on a device or the Find Devices web app at iCloud.com from a group account with which the missing device’s owner has enabled sharing.
• iCloud.com: For all other uses, turn to the Find Devices web app at https://www.icloud.com/find.

Some actions are limited: on the sheet for a device, you can play a sound, mark as lost, or enable notifications when found for your or anyone’s device using the Find My app on any device in the Family Sharing group. To erase a device, Find My prompts for the Apple Account password of the associated account.

If you cannot pass two-factor authentication

Apple requires two-factor authentication (2FA) for nearly all Apple Accounts—it’s useful in resisting account hijacking. However, it complicates using Find My if you (or someone you’re helping) don’t have access to any trusted, or Apple Account-linked, devices or phone numbers. Here are three approaches to set up in advance:

• Add a trusted phone number for people you trust: You can add a phone number for a partner, family member, close friend, or even an attorney or other professional you could contact in an emergency. Then, as long as you remember your Apple Account password, you can select that other person’s phone number in the 2FA validation process and they can provide you the code.
• Create a passkey for your Apple Account: Apple lets you bypass two-factor authentication if you enable a passkey. While a passkey is typically stored on your iCloud-synced devices, you can use some password managers to store one instead.
• Use a hardware encryption key: Apple lets you rely on hardware encryption keys for Apple Account access. As long as you still have one of the keys you set, you’re not locked out of iCloud.

Find My lets you take a variety of remote actions on devices and short-range actions on items. Options vary in utility based on whether your device has fallen behind a couch cushion, or has been misplaced or stolen, and whether the device or item is directly reachable via a local network, the internet, or the Find My network. With devices, Apple follows up many actions with an email message sent to your Apple Account’s associated address.

You can set up notifications within Find My to provide a variety of information depending on the category:

• People: You can opt to receive alerts when they arrive and leave locations you define, or send them alerts based on your location.
• Devices and Items: You can be notified when a device is found if it’s marked as lost. You can also receive a prompt when you leave something behind.

People-based notifications let you track when someone (including you) arrives at or leaves a location. The alert can be set once or on a recurring basis. Here’s what to do:

1. In a native Find My app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, bring up the sheet of actions for a person via the Person view.
2. In the version 27 releases, beneath either Notify Me or Notify Person, tap or click Add Location Alert. In earlier releases, beneath Notifications, first tap or click Add, then select Notify Me or Notify Person.
3. For Notify Me, you can select I Arrive or I Leave; for Notify Person, you can select Person Arrives, Person Leaves, or Person Is Not At.
4. Pick a location. Some locations will be prefilled, such as you or another person’s current location.
   • You can also tap or click New Location, then drag on the map or enter a location.
   • Clicking or tapping in the search field brings up potential matches from the person’s contact card before you start typing.
5. Optionally set a radius. Tap Small, Medium, or Large at the bottom of the map to switch among radii of 300, 800, and 1,250 feet (90 m, 240 m, and 380 m).
   • Or drag the blue dot at the right out to a preferred distance; a label indicates the radius as you drag.
   • The minimum is a 300-foot (90 m) radius. The maximum is 792,000 feet — 150 miles or 241 km.
   • A wider area prevents excessive notifications for departures, or gives earlier warning of an arrival.
6. Your final option varies based on the Arrives/Leaves/Is Not At selection:
   • For yourself or someone else, Arrives/Leaves lets you pick Only Once or Every Time for notification frequency.
   • For another person with Person Is Not At chosen, you can set a range of time and days of the week.
7. Click or tap Add to complete. If you set this up to track someone else, they now receive a notification that you’ve done so.

If you’ve asked your child to remain within a certain distance of home, or want to know when they’re returning so you can hide the liquor—er, clean up around you—then changing the radius is useful. However, an older child might employ a Cat in the Hat strategy towards a parent.

This map selection tool is also used with Notify When Left Behind, a way Apple helps you avoid accidentally losing stuff.

Is Not At could be useful with an employee or child to know when they’re not in a place you expect at certain times.

The other person is always told

When you let other people know what you’re up to with notifications, they receive an alert that tells them what they can expect to receive. This appears across your devices and is an anti-stalking measure; see how to check whether someone is tracking you.

Your Apple Watch lets you notify or be notified about people’s locations, but it’s limited to Notify Me/Notify Person with two options. You can notify someone when you leave your location or arrive at theirs, or when they leave their location or arrive at yours. You can’t select locations or set up other nuances below.

If you want to see notifications about someone else’s comings and goings, you’re told what they will be informed of and given a chance to cancel, and they receive a notification about what you’ll be updated about.

For recurring alerts set to Every Time, you’re told that someone has to approve the action. The notification is slightly different for Person Is Not At recurring alerts, specifying that the other person will be notified at the moment the schedule first goes into effect. So if you set the schedule to Wednesday at 9 a.m. and it’s Sunday night, the alert will say a request will be sent for approval at 9 a.m. Wednesday. (The time zone will be whatever time zone the location you set is in, not your or the other person’s current time zone.)

For notifications that require permission, you see a Pending Request label on that person’s sheet of actions.

It can be useful to pause notifications for a lot of reasons; tap or click Pause to pick a time to resume: either “Until the end of Today” or from a calendar.

You can freak someone out by creating a notification without alerting them first. When you use Find My to track someone’s arrival or departure, that person receives a notification that you’ve done so. This can happen in the most benign circumstances.

After my wife texted that she was coming home with oodles of groceries a couple of years ago, I created a notification to alert me when she got home so I’d break off what I was doing and go down a couple of flights of stairs to the street level to help her. She was surprised by the alert she had received. At that time, Apple had just changed their system to provide this disclosure to others.

That disclosure is quite useful, because tracking can be used in non-benign situations, too: see how to check whether someone is tracking you.