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How to Play a Sound on a Lost Device or AirTag

by Tyler Stephen

You can tap or click Play Sound when you can’t find a device or item but think it may be nearby, or for a device when you’re trying to alert someone remotely to notice that it’s there—and potentially get in touch with you. This includes everything from iPhones to earbuds to AirTags.

After you tap or click Play Sound, a loud pinging noise will play on a device (if sound is active) or the device will vibrate (if muted) for two minutes. You can also tap to stop it sooner.

With a 1st-generation AirTag, the sound has an ostensibly friendly tone and lasts for about 10 seconds; the 2nd-generation AirTag may seem less so, as Apple measures it as 50% louder. They also raised the pitch one whole tone (from F to G). Other Find My items vary in the sound they produce: the Chipolo ONE Spot says it blares at up to 120 decibels during its sound pattern—the level of a chainsaw or a plane taking off.

An Apple/Google anti-stalking specification (see how Apple and Google detect an unwanted AirTag) now in effect requires devices produce sound of a “minimum 60 Phon peak loudness” at 25 cm (10 inches), a measurement which means 60 dB at 1000 hertz (Hz), a mid-range in human speech, and about 75 dB for higher-pitched tones.

Play Sound communicates differently with devices and items:

  • For an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch, the signal is sent via a local network or the internet.
  • AirTags, Find My items, all AirPods models, and Beats audio devices with Find My support have to be within Bluetooth range to receive the signal from a paired device. (This is true even for Apple and Beats audio devices.)

The 2nd-generation AirTag includes a newer generation of Bluetooth chip, and should be reachable at dozens to hundreds of feet (say, 10 m to 100 m) further than the 1st-generation model.

  • AirPods Pro (2nd generation) can play a sound on their charging case as well as through earbuds.

For audio hardware, you should receive a warning about the potential for hearing damage.

With Apple and Beats earbuds, you can typically pick which earbud should play a sound: either or both.

If your earbuds are in their case or haven’t been “seen” by Find My for some period of time—Apple doesn’t say how long—you won’t see the left/right option.

Apple also alerts people who discover an item traveling with them and gives them an option to play a sound on it; see what an “AirTag Found Moving With You” alert means.

If a device is unlocked, a notification appears that reads “Find My Device Alert”. If an iPhone or iPad is locked, it has to be unlocked to disable the ping or vibration. On a Mac, the dialog can be dismissed at a sign-in screen.

Ping your watch from your phone

On an iPhone, you can add an Apple Watch ping option to Control Center. Swipe to reveal the Control Center, touch and hold on the background of one of the views, tap Add a Control, search for Watch, and add Ping My Watch. Swipe to reveal Control Center and tap the icon to ping. Waking or tapping your iPhone or Watch stops the terrible sound!

Get directions to a person or item

The Maps app offers a quick way to retrieve a path to a person, a device, or an item via Directions. You can tap or click Directions on the sheet in People, Devices, or Items in a native app. You can also use an info pane for a person in Messages, where it appears as a blue-tinted button with a suggested travel method and a time estimate derived from Maps.

Selecting Directions in Find My or tapping the blue directions button in Messages opens the Maps app on your device with the destination being the current location of the person, device, or item. You can then fine-tune things in Maps, such as choose a method of transportation (walking, public transit, driving, etc.)

If someone can’t be reached by car or transit, you just see their location, of course. Maps doesn’t plot boat or air trips.

Work out when someone will arrive

While Directions takes you to someone, you can also figure out how long someone will take to get to you—though it requires a few steps. When certain relatives visit us with their families or when we’re trying to figure out when our kids are due home, my spouse and I use Directions like this:

  1. In Family Sharing, select the person or device associated with them.
  2. Bring up the actions sheet and tap Directions.
  3. In Maps on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, reverse the direction by dragging the hamburger button to the right of the person’s name to the position above the entry labeled My Location.
  4. Select the mode of transportation the person is using.

Now you have the approximate time someone will arrive. While you can use the more direct method, this is a quick method less reliant on the accuracy and notification delivery of Find My and Apple.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS
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Where Apple Stores Your Passwords and Passkeys

by Emily Long

The topic of passwords is huge. The key security aspect is narrower: how you secure them.

Apple devices can store and sync passwords in many ways, each with a different risk profile. What follows is how Apple and third-party apps store passwords, and the gold standard for syncing them among devices without increasing the likelihood they could be accessed—even by the company storing them for you.

Apple added passkeys in 2022, a more secure method of logging into a website without leaking secrets and while offering phishing resistance. You use them in lieu of a password plus a second factor, as they combine the same functions. Apple has integrated passkeys into their overall password-management and fill-in approach.

Starting in Sonoma and iOS 17/iPadOS 17, you can also create sharing groups with other people that include both passwords and passkeys. This solves an issue where you may share account access with family members or colleagues but still want the security of a passkey. (This is managed through the Passwords app.)

Apple lets you log in with a passkey to your account on their Apple Account website. This was added to let you log in securely when you weren’t able to use either Touch ID/Face ID or two-factor authentication. For instance, if you’re using a browser on someone else’s Mac and don’t want to enter the password, or you’re connecting via a Google browser on an Android phone.

Apple’s Passwords app can generate a verification code required for login with many two-factor authentication systems and store it as part of a website password entry. Not Apple’s, of course, just all the others.

Hardware security keys

In early 2023, Apple also added direct support for Apple Account logins on devices and their Apple Account website using a standard closely related to passkeys that stores unique login information on a removable hardware security key. These hardware security keys incorporate industry standards, making them compatible across mobile devices and desktop computers, as well as working with websites and native support built into operating systems.

Hardware security keys have to be activated, whether you’re using them with your Apple Account or on a website (Apple’s or anyone’s). On your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, you insert a key into a port (USB Type A, USB-C, or Lightning) or, with an iPhone or iPad, bring a key with NFC near your device. You then press a trigger on the key to start the interaction.

Hardware security keys are obviously physical items you need to exercise distinct precautions around. Their contents are one-way vaults, much like the Secure Enclave in Apple hardware, and can’t be backed up. Make sure you have safeguards in place to avoid losing or damaging them, and to ensure they’re not stolen. Treat them like a stack of $100 bills.

Apple requires two hardware security keys to enroll in that method for your Apple Account, for just that reason. If one is broken or lost, hey, you have a second. You can enroll more than two.

Where your secrets reside

Starting with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple made the Passwords app the primary built-in interface for accessing secrets, whether website logins or app passwords. Previously, Apple had a Settings section for Passwords in iOS and iPadOS, and a Passwords tab in Safari for macOS.

Even earlier, Apple steered you to Keychain Access, a utility that still exists, and which provides lower-level access to all manner of passwords, codes, secrets, and certificates managed on your Mac. See how the Mac keychain works. There’s no iOS/iPadOS equivalent.

On an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can enable Passwords via iCloud settings, which syncs all your app-based passwords and website logins across all the devices you own that are also logged in to the same iCloud account and have Passwords sync enabled.

Go to System Settings/Settings > Account Name > iCloud and choose Passwords or Passwords and Keychain. Enable “Sync this Device type.”

iOS and iPad app passwords use a mapping that associates them with a website, which can cause problems when you signed up in an app or at a website and then try to log in at the other entry point. The website address might not match the one provided by the app, or the app might not incorporate the right website domain. For instance, the website might use login.example.com while the app points to api.example.com.

You have two options to work around this when it happens. First, you can tap or click Passwords, then search for the domain, app, or site, and select the password entry. You’ll be warned about filling in the password. The better path is to open Passwords, find the entry, select it, tap or click Edit, tap or click Websites, then enter variants on the domain.

Browsers other than Safari have their own password storage systems for local storage and syncing. For example, Google Chrome can sync across all your apps linked to the same Google account and makes passwords available through a web-based password manager, which I have more to say about below. (Apple lets you use iCloud Passwords synced items with Chrome by installing an extension, described later.)

Third-party password managers are a boon for people who work across ecosystems or have more nuanced needs to share passwords and other kinds of data securely. Some offer Android, Windows, and Apple apps, plus browser-based access, and let you set up multiple shared secure vaults or storage areas with different sets of people. These third-party systems also have native plugins for Safari and other browsers.

How your secrets are secured

It’s important to know how password vaults manage the encryption and security of your data, but it can also be a bottomless well of detail. In the following entries, I explain, from a top-level view, how Apple manages these aspects for the Apple Keychain and for Passwords synced via iCloud, how other well-designed password managers do the same, and Google’s shortcomings in that regard.

Local passwords and passkeys

On an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, passwords and passkeys are stored in a system keychain. This is invisible to iPhone and iPad users, but you can view that secure information on a Mac via the Keychain Access app. When you enter your account password or device passcode, the keychain is unlocked for use across the device, though Apple requires biometric or password/passcode authentication to apply passwords for most logins even after that.

When you launch Keychain Access, Apple shows a dialog that says, “Manage Your Passwords in the new Passwords App.” You can then click Open Passwords (highlighted in blue) or Open Keychain Access. If you never want to be prompted again, check “Do not show this message again.”

Passkeys are stored in the keychain, but you can’t view their contents—only that you created them—because they’re based on long sequences of digits that form encryption keys meant to be kept strictly private; even displaying them reduces your security. A Mac makes a passkey available when required to log in to a website. Other browsers and apps that incorporate webpage views can also tap into Apple’s system framework to securely use passkeys.

In the Passwords app, you can view passkeys in their own category, although the entry also includes the login information used when you enrolled, such as username and password.

If you have a website login with a password, initially set up with two-factor code-based verification and then transitioned to a passkey, all those elements appear in a single Passwords manager entry.

You’ll also notice that, if you use Google Chrome in Sonoma or later, the browser opens its own compatible passkey validation system for Google account logins.

Keychain data on its own never leaves your machine, and when backed up, the associated files are encrypted. Locally stored keychain entries are backed up by full-disk encryption on all Apple silicon Macs. Your device passwords and passcodes are the only real weak points.

Apple and the rest of the industry agreed on a standard for passkeys, and also agreed to make passkeys securely exchangeable among ecosystems. Well, the first part was true first; the second took years to emerge, finally becoming a reality in 2025 with the version 26 operating systems. With 1Password, Bitwarden, or Dashlane installed, you can move passkeys (and other passwords) between them and Passwords; with two or more installed, they can transfer between each other.

iCloud Keychain for synced data

iCloud relies on endpoint security with locally stored encryption keys that never leave your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Data is encrypted in transit, and the strongly encrypted data when synced or stored in iCloud is useless without these device-based keys, which are stored in the Secure Enclave on any hardware that has one.

With two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled on your iCloud account—more or less mandatory these days—it’s effectively impossible for someone in most circumstances to gain access to your synced and stored Passwords entries. They would need all three of the following:

  • Your iCloud password
  • Either, with standard code-based 2FA:

— Access to one of your trusted devices that they had the passcode or password for or could otherwise unlock to receive a 2FA token, or a trusted phone number (or hijack a phone number)

— The device password for one of your other Apple devices that’s already synced. When you add a new device to iCloud syncing of Passwords, Apple has you prove yourself by entering the password for an existing device in your set.

  • Or, with an Apple Account locked to hardware security keys for 2FA, access to one of the two or more hardware security keys associated with your Apple Account.

However, there’s one flaw in the above, which is covered in how thieves steal iPhone passcodes: if someone can obtain your iPhone and its passcode, they may be able to use the phone to trigger a reset of your Apple Account password. See how to turn on Stolen Device Protection for advice on preventing that.

Don’t worry about entering your passcode for Passwords syncing: Apple doesn’t know your passcode or store it or transmit it unencrypted. Instead, when you enable Passwords syncing on any device, part of the process bootstraps distributing a set of cryptographic elements securely to other devices. It does so by encrypting that set with the password of the device you’re using—but only the one-way encrypted form of the password is used.

On another device, if you don’t enter exactly the same password, when it’s also transformed in the same way, it won’t match the stored version, and it won’t be able to decrypt the syncing keys to add the device you’re on—and blocks a cracker who doesn’t know your other devices’ passwords, too.

A well-designed third-party manager

The system I described just above for Passwords is the same one that’s been implemented by 1Password. (I don’t recommend any other third-party password manager.)

It’s a zero-knowledge security model for syncing across the cloud, in which the parties handling data can’t actually see the secrets and have no access to keys. As you add devices to cloud syncing, you have to prove you have other devices and secrets first. This is true for both companies’ access to your data stores via their websites: all encryption happens locally in the browser; none is ever sent to the companies; and each login session requires proof of certain elevated secrets that no one can intercept.

1Password’s system syncs files blindly, with storage vaults encrypted and stored that way on 1Password’s servers. The master password for the vault is never transmitted in any way, nor are unencrypted entries.

1Password’s approach is close to Apple’s. The big difference? Apple copies all passwords to local storage and doesn’t allow web-based access to entries, even though they’re all stored with device-based encryption at iCloud.com. With 1Password, there’s no permanent local storage, but you can use a secure method for browser-based access if a native app isn’t available.

Google password encryption

If you use Google for password management—or as part of your password-management approach—I recommend upgrading to the device-based encryption option they introduced a few years ago.

Tip: You can check whether you already have it set up: you might have enabled it or been walked through it by Google already. Follow the same steps below.

Use Google Chrome (not another Chromium-based browser) for the following steps:

  1. In the top-right corner of the browser window, click the More button and choose Passwords and Autofill > Google Password Manager.
  2. Click the menu button and click Settings.
  3. If you see Set Up next to “On-device encryption,” click the link and follow the steps. If you see an open-in-new-window button, on-device encryption is already enabled.

You can avoid Google’s password system and rely on Apple’s by installing iCloud Passwords for Chrome. It’s a Chrome extension that manages the local security issues for accessing Passwords. Unlike Google’s system, it works with Chromium browsers.

Tags: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Security
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Why Find My Shows the Wrong Location

by Kevin Hollington

You might encounter one of two situations that provide no location information—or the wrong location—for yourself (or someone you’re allowed to follow).

A router that moved house

Apple relies on a combination of satellite navigation signals, cellular tower communication, and Wi-Fi positioning to estimate the location of a given device. That’s not always the correct location when a Wi-Fi router you’re near has been moved from its previous location.

Apple continuously grabs information about the strength and publicly broadcast information of any Wi-Fi router from all its devices that have internet connectivity and from its Apple Maps capture vehicles as they drive around the world. (Some countries prohibit some or all of this information gathering.)

But there’s a scenario in which a relocated router retains its old location in Apple’s database, because every device near it connects to the router over Wi-Fi.

This happened to a friend’s mother who lives in a rural location. A router belonging to one of her kids was moved to her house and suddenly her iPhone said she was at the router’s old home.

Let’s say the router is in Utah and a person moves to rural Kentucky, far enough away from a road that their Wi-Fi router isn’t picked up in a short enough period by people or vehicles passing by.

Whenever the router’s owner connects to the internet, their cellular equipped devices default to Wi-Fi if they’re within range; this also means they don’t capture GPS or cellular tower information to update the location, which is instead derived from the most powerful Wi-Fi signal nearby.

Apple doesn’t offer any direct way to report a moved router, but there’s a way you can try to push this into their database:

  1. With Wi-Fi enabled on a cellular device, open Apple Maps.
  2. With a blue dot showing your current location in the wrong place, swipe down and tap Report an Issue.
  3. Tap Report Street Issue.
  4. Move the dot to your correct current location. Tap “Something else.”
  5. Type a comment that explains your Wi-Fi router has moved.
    • For extra points, find the BSSID (unique hardware ID) of your router and enter that, too. Hold down the Option key on a Mac while selecting the Wi-Fi menu and the router’s BSSID appears in a list of technical details.
  6. Click Send.

You can also disable Wi-Fi on a cellular device near the router for periods of time, allowing it to upload sufficient new locations about the router that Apple’s Wi-Fi positioning database updates.

No location at all

Sometimes Find My simply breaks: location isn’t provided even with all the right switches flipped. Everything will appear set up correctly on devices, and disabling and re-enabling the service doesn’t fix the problem. The only solution I’ve found is backing up an iPhone or iPad, erasing it, and performing a restore.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS
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How to Share an AirTag With Someone Else

by Emily Long

For each Find My item, you can opt to share with up to five other people. Apple expanded this in late 2024 with Share Item Location, a secure way to create an expiring link for a lost item that you can share with “airlines and trusted people.”

The sharing limit of up to five other people matches Family Sharing group limits, which can have six people total, but you don’t have to share with others if you’re in a group.

Accepting a Find My item sharing invitation means you won’t be notified in the future when the item is near you. Conversely, you will always be able to see the item in your Items list.

Apple lets you share an AirTag only with someone who uses a phone number or email address associated with an Apple Account, or a contact in your address book that contains an Apple Account-linked phone number or email address.

Share an AirTag

  1. Go to the Find My app and click or tap the Items button.
  2. Select a Find My item.
  3. On a Mac, click the More button in macOS 27, or the Info button in macOS 26 or earlier.
  4. Click or tap Add Person beneath Share This AirTag/item.
  5. Apple alerts you about the risks and benefits of sharing a Find My item.
  6. Click or tap Continue to proceed, or Not Now or Cancel to exit.
  7. In the Share Item view, you see all your contacts. You can:
    • Click or tap a contact that is shown in blue. That indicates an Apple Account-linked element in the contact. (Gray entries have already been added.)
    • Click or tap the plus button to view the full contacts list and search within it. These entries are not color guided for Apple Account.
    • At the To: prompt, start entering a phone number or email address. You’ll see matching contacts until you pass a point at which there is no match.
  8. Click or tap the blue checkmark button..

The person you selected appears with a Pending label until they accept. You can click or tap their entry to withdraw the invitation. This item now appears under the oddly named Items I Shared label in Find My.

If you tap a gray entry in the contacts list or try to add someone through another means whose email or phone number lacks a link to an Apple Account, Find My displays an alert that the person isn’t eligible for sharing. I’ve also seen a bug in which nothing happens—a brief stutter and no error—but that person is not added.

When someone shares an item with you

If you’ve had an item shared with you, the shared item appears under Items Shared With Me. Find My reveals the same information as the owner sees on their own devices. On the item’s sheet of actions, click or tap the owner’s name to view the contact associated with them. If you want to stop the item being shared with you, click or tap Remove at the bottom of its detailed view and then, after being told the owner can still track it and you’ll get notifications again when it’s near, click or tap Remove to complete the process.

For someone who has accepted, tap or click their name in the item’s sheet. This presents a simple dialog that lets you tap or click View Friend to show them in Find My’s People view if they’ve shared their location with you; or, you can tap or click Remove and confirm removing their permission to see the item. Click Cancel to exit or tap outside the dialog on an iPhone or iPad.

Share contact details instead

If you want to provide more information to someone finding something of yours, you can use Show Contact Info. Also found under Lost AirTag or Lost Item, the Show Contact Info item lets you add either your phone number or an email address. See what someone sees when they find your lost device.

If you cannot share an item

If you want to share an item and can’t—either sharing it to someone or accessing a shared invitation—it may be one of these reasons:

  • Both the sharer and recipient must be running at least iOS 17, iPadOS 17, or macOS 14.
  • You can view shared items, but not initiate sharing, on an Apple Watch.
  • Only people with the 26.2.1 or later releases of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or watchOS can view shared 2nd-generation AirTags. See AirTag 2 vs AirTag.

Stop sharing an AirTag

If you’re the owner of an AirTag and no longer want to share it, you can stop sharing in Find My.

  1. Go to the Find My app 656662b1-6b5c-469e-9d04-915022f44dae on your iPhone.
  2. Tap Items b44f9563-4315-48bf-8490-64ca27d3e29c, tap the name of the item you’re sharing, then tap the More button.
  3. Tap the name of the person you’re sharing it with.
  4. Tap Stop Sharing, then tap Stop Sharing again.

The person you were sharing with no longer sees the AirTag’s location, but may still get tracking notifications when the AirTag is moving with them.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS
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How to See Someone’s Location in Find My

by Moses Johnson

The People view lists everyone with whom you share your location, whom you follow, or both. The list reveals basic information, such as their current location (address or name), how far away they are, and the last update received.

With no one selected, the portion of the view with the map plots everyone you follow for whom a current location is known. This view zooms the map to show them all if they are in reasonably close proximity to one another. People are identified with their avatar.

Apple used to zoom the map in tightly, so I could see everyone near me in Seattle. However, in some update I missed, the zoom factor now encompasses my entire region. For me, that means I see my father in Port Townsend, about 56 miles away as the crow drives.

However, if your people aren’t within some reasonable distance of one another—say one of your children is in Europe, and you live as I do in Seattle—you only see the people nearest you. Apple doesn’t define this distance, but it seems to be within a few hundred miles.

You can also tap or click someone’s image or initials in the map view, and Find My zooms in to their surroundings just as if you had tapped or clicked their entry in the People list. In the version 27 releases, tapping or clicking on a zoomed-in, selected person in the map deselects them and zooms back out.

How exact the position is

Find My indicates its confidence about someone’s location by varying the diameter of the area around their profile image and the color—either blue or green. With a translucent blue circle centered on the person, the confidence could be described as high (within a few feet or a meter), medium (within about 100 feet or 30 meters), or low (about several city blocks). When the location is very precise and the person isn’t moving, you may see no blue circle—a pulsating green one appears instead.

If a person can’t be plotted that precisely, the circle of confidence can be quite large, and Find My calls out the lack of exact knowledge.

If someone is off the grid and has updated their location via satellite, you can see their location in Find My for iPhone: it appears as a tiny satellite icon next to their photo, and Satellite Location appears in the text on the sheet of actions. See how to send your location by satellite.

If you’re within about 150 to 200 feet (roughly 50 to 60 meters) of someone else who has shared their location with you and you both have an iPhone 15 series or later model, you can use Precision Finding, which gives precise directions. See how to use Precision Finding — the feature first appeared in AirTags. (This person-to-person finding relies on the UWB chip introduced in that series.)

When you use Precision Finding to locate someone else, they’re notified you’re looking for them and can likewise enable the feature (or start a game of cat and mouse).

Select a person and reveal their sheet for more ways to interact with their location or presence. You can click or tap Contact to view their contact card. You can also add them to Favorites, which sorts them to the top of the list.

Give a place your own name

You might notice an option called Location Label (the version 27 releases), Label Current Location, or Edit Location Name. This lets you assign custom labels to frequent locations—or any location—so that it appears more comprehensible when presented in a list. By default, Apple shows the best label it has, like the closest address or a building, park, or other geographical name.

You can choose to label a location your home, work, school, or gym, or add a custom label to make it more meaningful to you. For a friend I mutually follow, I’ve given his home a nickname rather than its address. These location labels appear in People, Devices, and Items.

Find someone from Messages

In the Messages app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, if someone has shared their location with you and their current location is known, a broad approximation appears below their profile photo, like the city and state in the United States. You can drill down further to see an inset map and bring up a larger one:

  • On an iPhone or iPad, tap the avatar in a conversation entry.
  • On a Mac, select a conversation entry and click the avatar (Tahoe or later) or the Info button in the upper-right corner (Sequoia and earlier).

Tap or click the inset map to reveal a larger one while remaining in Messages. Tap or click Open in Find My to switch to that app with the selected person. (In Sequoia or earlier, you can’t jump to Find My.)

If someone has remained at a location, the inset map shows the street name, city, and state in the United States; the larger map in Messages shows a more precise address, if available, like 5404 Ravenna Blvd NE, Seattle, WA 98115. (Not a real address!) If they’re in transit, the inset map shows more concise information, while the larger map provides more detail, such as the district or neighborhood they’re in.

In addition to the map, Messages overlays a link to get directions, showing car, transit, or walking time if close enough. A Stop Sharing My Location link appears below the map on the info pane. (See how to play a sound on a lost device or AirTag.)

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS
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How to Share Files Safely in iCloud Drive and Dropbox

by Tyler Stephen

Apple’s iCloud Drive is integrated into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and lets you use your free or paid iCloud space to store and share files.

A shared folder requires an Apple Account to access, and the contents are all accessible to whomever is invited or has the link, depending on the permissions you set. Up to 100 people can be invited to a folder. Only folders you create can be shared—not ones that Apple manages or that are created for apps. Storage space is occupied only in the sharing party’s iCloud account, which makes it handy if other people don’t have large iCloud storage subscriptions.

iCloud Drive appears in macOS by default as an item in the Finder window sidebar. You can select it there, or you can choose Go > iCloud Drive or press ⌘-Shift-I. On an iPhone or iPad, use the Files app.

With Advanced Data Protection enabled, iCloud data is secured end-to-end among your devices. It’s also E2EE secured with devices of anyone with whom you share if you all have ADP enabled.

Share a file or folder in iCloud Drive

  1. Select the items to share. On a Mac, Control-click or right-click any file or folder stored in iCloud Drive, or select several and Control-click one of them, then choose Share from the contextual menu. On an iPhone or iPad, touch and hold a file or folder and choose Share; or tap the More button, choose Select, tap the button beside each item, and tap the Share button.
  2. A share popover appears. Choose Send Copy or Share a Link from its pop-up menu. Send Copy sends a download link and has no further options. Apple renamed several of these labels in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate; the functions are unchanged, and earlier releases call this Collaborate.
  3. If you choose Share a Link, set the permissions by clicking or tapping the text below that label:
    • Under Who Can Access, choose “People you choose” to limit access, or “Anyone with the link” to open it up. Earlier releases call the first option “Only invited people”.
    • From Permissions, choose “Can edit” for read and write access, or “Can view or download” for read-only. Earlier releases call these “Can make changes” and “View only”.
    • Enable or disable “Allow access requests”, called “Allow others to invite” in earlier releases.
  4. Select people or groups from recent interactions in Messages and elsewhere, or click one of the options, like Mail or AirDrop, to share the link.
  5. Complete the process in the dialog, sheet, or app prompt that appears. If you copy a link in the 27 releases, you are warned that sharing with a group means approving access for each member; you can proceed, or choose Allow Anyone with the Link instead.

Once shared, the item is marked in the Finder or the Files app:

  • In macOS, you can opt to show a Shared By column in the Finder. It may be enabled in some iCloud Drive views. If not, and you want to turn it on, choose View > Show View Options and check Shared By. With that column active, you see Me for you or the name of the sharing party for files or folders shared by others. All files that aren’t shared show Not Shared, which feels like overkill.
  • In macOS with the Shared By column disabled and in iOS/iPadOS, you see a label next to a file in the Finder or next to or beneath it in the Files app that reads Shared by Me if just a link is used or an invitation hasn’t yet been opened. The label displays With Person or People when an invitation is accepted. The last person to modify may appear instead, such as Modified by Dave Johnson.

To make changes, the easiest way to access these shared items is via the Shared view. On an iPhone or iPad, tap the Shared button in Files; on a Mac, choose Go > Shared in the Finder (⌘-Shift-S). Select the items as above either in the Shared view or by choosing the same set of original items. Touch and hold on an iPhone or iPad or Control-click/right-click to reveal the Manage Shared Folder item.

Choose Manage Shared Folder to reveal a dialog that shows the sharing details. You can see with whom the item is shared, and you can remove and add members (if you have permission), change permissions, or change invitation parameters. If and when you’re ready to stop sharing, click or tap Stop Sharing.

iCloud.com allows similar options for sharing files, although the sequence is a little different and options are far more limited:

  1. Log in to iCloud.com and click iCloud Drive.
  2. Select a single file or folder and then click the Share File or Folder button. Email and Copy Link destinations are available.
  3. Click Share Options to access permissions that are identical with those found on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
  4. When you’ve made your choices, click Share.

Dropbox

Dropbox is an exceedingly popular service for simple syncing across devices that offers several different ways to share files with strong controls on access. It has integrated macOS support, as well as full-featured apps for iOS/iPadOS and other major platforms, and a sophisticated web app.

On a Mac, Dropbox uses Apple’s framework for cloud-storage providers to add icons to the right of files and folders in the Finder in its folder. The Dropbox folder is the only one that’s synced, and it’s located by default in your home folder. Files and folders may be online only or online and stored locally.

Some features require a paid Dropbox subscription.

Control-click or right-click a single file or folder inside the Dropbox folder on a Mac or tap the More button to the right of a file or folder in the Dropbox app for iPhone/iPad. You can now access several options by choosing:

  • Share: This opens a dialog or sheet with extensive options to let people have access to a file or folder. You can invite people, create publicly available or password-protected links for sharing, and set an end-date for access. Use this option for sharing items that you want people to have ongoing access to, particularly for folders that you might optionally want to let people drop items into or modify. (Shared folders count against other people’s Dropbox storage limits.)
  • Transfer a Copy: Dropbox lets you send files without providing any access to your Dropbox space. The transfer can be password protected and have an expiration date. On a Mac, you use the contextual menu; in the iPhone/iPad app, you start in the files view and tap the plus button, then select files to transfer.
  • Copy Dropbox Link: Choosing this on a Mac (or via the Share > Copy link pathway on an iPhone/iPad) creates a public link that anyone who has it can use to download the particular item. For certain kinds of files, like images and PDFs, the link allows viewing inline on a website, too.

Google Drive and OneDrive

Two other major firms’ apps don’t offer file-level Finder integration, but can sync files automatically and provide Mac access via a web app. Both also have iPhone/iPad apps.

The advantage of both is that you might already have paid for storage:

  • Google Drive: Google Drive provides access to the 15 GB of free storage available for all Google individual accounts or to the larger pool of paid Google One tiers that start at 100 GB for $19.99 per year. Business accounts include a higher starting storage allocation. Google allows public and invitation-based links with varying permission, but doesn’t offer setting an expiration date.
  • Microsoft OneDrive with Microsoft 365: Anyone can get 5 GB of file storage (plus 15 GB of email storage) in Microsoft OneDrive by setting up a free Microsoft 365 account. For $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, you can upgrade to Microsoft 365 Basic with 100 GB each for files and email. At $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year (one person) or $12.99 a month or $12.99 a year (up to six people in a family), Microsoft 365 Personal offers 1 TB of file storage and 100 GB of email per person. The Personal plan also adds access to desktop Microsoft apps. OneDrive’s sharing options are comparable to those of Dropbox, with options for sending invitations, creating a public link, and setting an expiration date for the link.
Tags: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Security
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How Apple and Google Detect an Unwanted AirTag

by Moses Johnson

Efforts to find unknown AirTags and other trackers received a big boost with an industry standard released in 2024 by Apple and Google. Called Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers (DULT), the two companies have implemented it in their ecosystems.

A few other companies expressed initial support for this specification, but only Chipolo and Pebblebee have incorporated the required features into aspects of their apps and hardware that aren’t part of the Apple Find My and Google Find Hub requirements. The rest of the industry has fallen down entirely—but lacks effective crowdsourced tracking due to a small installed base.

One of the only significant elements of the standard that wasn’t part of Apple’s existing framework is a requirement that each ecosystem’s operator requires an email address and phone number from a tracker’s registered user, which wasn’t necessarily the case across all current crowdsourced trackers.

When someone discovers or is alerted to a tracker near them, an app can access those details. Both the email address and the phone number are masked. The spec explains the reasoning:

The specification explains the reasoning. In many cases the person being tracked already knows the tracker’s owner. An obfuscated email address or phone number gives a victim “some level of information on the owner”. It also protects owners merely separated from their property.

Makers must maintain a database of serial numbers and associated phone numbers and email addresses under this proposal, and provide the registered details to law enforcement on request—no subpoena or other judicial process required. However, there’s also no process noted for how the email and phone number are validated. We know that Apple associates your Apple Account information with an AirTag and Find My items, and those require validation.

This raises some privacy concerns. On the one hand, we should preserve our digital and real-world privacy as much as possible, and Apple has been a stalwart defender of our rights against companies and governments in that regard.

However, on the other hand, when there’s clear evidence of potential criminality and the likelihood of harm or violence—like someone finding a tracking device they don’t own placed in their stuff—making information available to police with proper credentials to pursue the tracking person seems desirable. The issue in practice will be how well companies mediate providing government access to the tracker registration database.

How the Google stalking alerts differ

When Google announced their Find Hub Bluetooth tracking devices in 2024, they explained that crowdsourced relaying of location would be much more restricted than with Apple’s network:

  • A tracker’s location is relayed only when it’s in what Google calls a high-traffic area, like an airport, café, “busy footpaths,” or public transit. This prevents location tracking in places like homes or on a solo bike ride or drive.
  • If you let Google know your home address via your Google Account (a wasp’s nest of privacy issues, to be sure), any Android device you have won’t relay location information for trackers when you’re in or near your home.
  • A tracker’s owner can’t continuously request the device’s location. Google hasn’t provided details, but says they “rate limit” and “throttle” requests, as most lost items remain in stationary locations.

These are excellent additions to the privacy and safety arsenal that I hope Apple ultimately adopts as well.

What the reports actually showed

An odd report came from the York Regional Police in Ontario, Canada, in December 2021: car thieves were using AirTags to track down and steal cars. The police said they found AirTags used to “mark” expensive vehicles in public locations (and offered a photo of one instance) so that thieves could locate them later in easier-to-steal locations, like a public street or driveway.

Following this report, news media and other police departments issued a flurry of accounts of both car thieves and stalkers using AirTags. Some reports are sketchy; some lead with a strong headline, but then note that it was probably a false positive. In one case, a 17-year-old discovered her mother was tracking her. How prevalent is this, really?

Apple responded to these reports and others on Feb. 10, 2022, with a statement called “An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking.” Along with a host of improvements, nearly all rolled out in 2022, Apple also noted, “Based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.” (Apple also updated their unwanted tracking support document.)

For a period, the phenomenon seemed to disappear, in 2023 and 2024. However, I’ve seen a new resurgence of reporting. The scope of the issue is impossible to gauge.

Police suggest the reverse use

Many police and sheriff’s departments suggest turning AirTags around: to help recover cars and be aware of thefts, law-enforcement groups suggest sticking an AirTag in your car. In fact, after a huge surge in thefts of certain Kia and Hyundai models due to a security flaw, the New York City mayor gave out 500 AirTags donated by a nonprofit to residents in heavily affected areas. Police warn, however, not to try to recover your own car; this has led to deaths and injury.

Regardless of how often AirTags are misused, Apple suggests contacting law enforcement if you feel endangered. All Find My items provide a little help here, as you can connect to a webpage associated with the item and see the last four digits of the phone number associated with the device. You may recognize the number, or the police may use it to track down the person who is tracking you.

An AirTag makes it easy: you tap or hold the AirTag near anything with an NFC reader, and it prompts with a webpage link. For other devices, a finder has to go through a multi-step process (see how to identify an AirTag you have found).

Where to get help

There are many organizations beyond law enforcement eager to help people trapped in situations of domestic abuse or child subject to violence and an unsafe environment. For adults in the United States, that includes the National Domestic Violence Hotline; for children or those concerned about their welfare in the United States and Canada, the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline.

For those being stalked, one starting point is Safehope. It’s more likely you will need the help of police or federal authorities. Local police departments have their own paths to navigate, but for online or cyber stalking, it may be better to start with the FBI.

If the person you are worried about may be watching your device, use one they cannot see. Removing a tracker or turning off sharing can be noticed, and advocates warn that it can make a situation worse rather than better, so it is worth talking to someone before you act.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS
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How to Turn On Find My on iPhone, iPad and Mac

by Emily Long

Find My comes in three flavors:

  • Device-based, two-way short-range and internet: This version is the original and better understood, and can be enabled on devices: an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and, by extension, an Apple Watch paired with an iPhone. The device actively sends its location over the internet whenever the internet is available. Find My Device allows the owner of a device to send remote events, like playing a sound or triggering erasure, to a device. Apple and Beats audio devices near their paired device act like this as well.
  • Find My notification network: The Find My network is a one-way notification system that relays location via other people’s internet-connected devices. It can be enabled on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and is an inherent attribute of “items”: AirTags and third-party Find My products. Audio devices like AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, and several models of Beats earbuds and headphones act like Find My items when away from their paired device. An owner can’t send commands via the Find My network.

The AirTag, some audio devices, and other items can receive a command to play a sound via Bluetooth from a nearby device. This allows either an owner or someone whose device has been relaying Find My network location data to play a sound on an AirTag.

  • Device-based, Bluetooth range: For Apple AirPods, you can track location only when they’re near their paired iPhone or iPad. They use Bluetooth and don’t participate in the broader Find My network, but their current or last-known location appears in the Devices view in Find My (and the Apple Watch Find Devices app in watchOS 26 or earlier). An owner can trigger a sound when they are near these audio devices.

Because devices can connect to either the two-way or notification network, the other way to look at it is this way:

  • Devices can use both networks: An owner of a device can perform a remote action whenever it’s connected to the internet (or its paired device is and is nearby, with audio hardware), but can see its location when it’s picked up via either form of Find My.
  • Items can use only the Find My network: Items can only ever report their location.

Turn on Find My for a device

Local- and internet-based Find My on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac requires an active Apple Account associated with iCloud. You likely already set up Find My when upgrading or setting up your device.

To enable Find My on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, if you haven’t signed in with an Apple Account yet, go to System Settings/Settings > Account Name > iCloud and enter your credentials.

On an iPhone or iPad, tap Settings > Account Name > Find My to view and make changes in settings; these settings also affect any paired Apple Watch. On a Mac, go to System Settings > iCloud > Show All. If Find My isn’t enabled, turn it on. Once Find My is active, you can tap or click the Find My item to access additional settings, like the Find My network or, on an iPhone/iPad, Send Last Location.

Enabled devices are automatically added to your iCloud account’s list of devices. For supported devices, Apple enables Activation Lock.

Turn on the Find My network

Find My network tracking has distinctly different options depending on whether you’re enabling it on devices or using it with items. Here’s the breakdown for those categories.

Apple enables the Find My network on iPhone, iPad, and Mac by default. Any Apple Watch, AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro or Max, or supported Beats audio device paired with an iPhone is similarly tracked. You can toggle this setting as follows:

  • iPhone (plus Apple Watch)/iPad: Change the Find My network option in Settings > Account Name > Find My > Find My iPhone/iPad.
  • Mac: Go to System Settings > Account Name > iCloud, click Show More Apps, and click Find My Mac.

Disabling the Find My network also removes your device’s participation in finding other people’s lost items.

There’s one hidden requirement that Apple doesn’t document, because it’s implicit; the company has spoken about it publicly. Because finding devices over the Find My network requires the use of encryption secrets stored only on devices, you have to have two devices enabled on the network in order for one to find the other. That way, they exchange the necessary secrets using Apple’s privacy-preserving framework without Apple possessing any of your encryption keys. (This is quite similar to how iCloud Keychain works.)

In other words, if you have a single device that’s lost and it can connect to the internet, you’re using the two-way Find My system. A single lost device that can’t connect to the internet also cannot use the Find My network to find it, because there’s no other trusted device that can query Apple for the secret Find My network details. You can’t use iCloud.com for crowdsourced device location, as iCloud.com doesn’t store the Find My network secrets, much as it doesn’t store iCloud Keychain password entries and other secrets.

This requirement isn’t in place with items, because you can already discover the location of items that aren’t nearby only by using the Find My network from a device.

Powering off no longer hides a phone

When an iPhone series 11 or later model is in the extremely low-power “power reserve mode” or “powered off,” as long as your device has any battery power available (or is plugged in), it will continue to send Bluetooth beacons for location discovery if the Find My network setting is turned on as described above; you can also disable the network temporarily, as described next.

In this power reserve mode, you should be able to use Express Mode for transit system payment even if your iPhone (or Apple Watch) can’t do anything else.

Powering down a device offers up a warning in small type that highlights this change. Tap the warning to get the full details. You can tap Temporarily Turn Off Finding, enter your device passcode, and then power down; on the next power up, Find My is reactivated.

Items are always on

AirTags are designed to work both via short-range networking directly with a paired iPhone or iPad and through the crowdsourced system. When you set up an AirTag, it’s enabled for use on the Find My network, as described in how to set up an AirTag.

Third-party Find My network items have a slightly different pairing process, but remain active at all times, too; see how third-party Find My trackers differ.

Apple and Beats audio devices appear under the Devices view in the Find My or Find Devices app because they report their location via a paired device when in range (which is almost certainly often). When not in range, they rely on the Find My network. AirPods can only be tracked via the paired device, while all the other Apple and Beats hardware can use the Find My network. (I guess Apple didn’t want to confuse audio device owners by classifying these higher-end devices with single-function trackers.)

You can reset a Find My item, remove its battery, or use a special disable sequence to stop it sending out a stream of location data. See how to reset or disable an AirTag.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS
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How to Stop Leaving Your Phone and Bags Behind

by Kevin Hollington

Notify When Left Behind helps with absent-mindedness, exhaustion, and theft. Using your presence, whenever you move a certain distance away from a device or item—Apple doesn’t define how far—you receive a notification on that device.

Found on the sheet for any device or item in native Find My apps, it’s enabled by default under Notifications. You can choose to disable it on a per-item basis. Apple also excludes the place you defined as Home or Apple inferred was your Home.

The device on which you would be notified is listed as part of the explanation when you tap or click Notify When Left Behind.

Your Apple Watch doesn’t alert you when something is left behind (and the Find My app explains this); instead, the alert comes only when the item is separated from your primary presence device, typically an iPhone. (See how Find My works.)

Notify When Left Behind helps in a bunch of scenarios I can imagine:

  • Forgetting you placed an iPad in the seat-back pocket on an airplane. (This is certainly a main cause of loss for iPads and Kindles.)
  • Leaving an iPhone, iPad, or Mac in a coffee shop or restaurant.
  • Forgetting your backpack that has an AirTag in its pocket at someone’s house.
  • Checking your luggage at an airport or train station for a trip.
  • Leaving items at a hotel room, hostel, Airbnb, or the like after checking in during a trip, such as in a hotel safe.
  • Not packing your laptop in a bag you’re carrying with you before leaving for school or work—or vice versa!
  • Locking up a bike that you’ve attached a Find My item to at your destination—then forgetting you biked there and taking a bus home. (Folks, if you bike regularly and you haven’t made or almost made this mistake, count yourself lucky.)

Trust a place

When you’re notified, you can tap Don’t Notify Me, and the location where your Find My item or device was left will be added as a location. If you have an Apple Watch, a notification on the watch also lets you tap Trust Location or Dismiss.

You can also suppress this notification in a Find My app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac by selecting the item or device, which then shows where it was last seen. You can tap or click Don’t Notify Me Here.

When you add a location through this method, the operating system prompts you, “Don’t notify at map description of location?” You can then tap or click “For all Items or Devices,” “For this Item/Device,” or Cancel.

You can also manually add other locations to exclude by tapping or clicking Notify When Left Behind, then New Location. The map interface for location selection is identical to the one for People. You have the additional option when you click Done to add the location to select “For all Items and Devices” or “For this Device.”

You can accumulate a list over time of places that you don’t want to be notified about items being left behind at. For me, this has become an interesting travelogue of all the hotels, homes, and workplaces I’ve been at.

You can clean this list up by removing locations. On an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, tap or click the remove button to a location’s right. The exception is the Home location, which can be removed only on the device that establishes presence. You can view those locations on an Apple Watch, but not remove them.

It is not an anti-theft feature

Because the notification occurs only when the device remains static and you’ve left it behind, it is not an anti-theft feature. Conceivably, we need Apple to add the opposite case, too: Notify When Moves Away. Perhaps this could cause both the device that’s taken and the hardware that notifies to both squeal uncontrollably until reunited?

A bag in a hotel safe

As I was revising this edition, I received a text from a friend. After a trip out of state, he’d realized he’d forgotten to retrieve a small bag in the hotel safe. He didn’t care much about the bag—except that it contained his passport! The bag also contained an AirTag, but he wasn’t alerted that it was left behind for several hours.

He could see the AirTag in what appeared to be the parking lot. A few slightly clueless hotel front-desk people seemed helpless, although one walked out into the parking lot and said the location appeared to be a grate. Maybe a thief had thrown the AirTag down its openings? But that would mean someone had stolen it from the room safe or lost and found after he had checked out.

After a day or so, a more clued-in staffer called back: it was in the lost-and-found safe, which apparently other people hadn’t checked. For $60, the hotel used a third-party service to return the bag. And then he watched as it didn’t move for days—requiring three more calls to the hotel—before it finally landed at the airport near us. And then sat there for a day before UPS put it on a truck.

The related setting: Notify When Found

Device notifications don’t let you see when something comes or goes, but instead provide you useful feedback related to losing something or having it stolen.

Find My enhances its Lost Mode/Mark as Lost option by providing a notification option after you mark a device as lost. This notification can occur when that device is “found”—that is, when it’s back online, however briefly (see what someone sees when they find your lost device).

Notify When Found is disabled by default on the sheet of actions for a device or item in a native Find My app unless it’s been marked as lost. Then you have just the option to turn it on or off. If enabled, a notification appears on your devices in one of two cases: a piece of your equipment detects the missing item; or the device or item reports its location through Find My or the Find My network.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS
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How to Track Lost Luggage With an AirTag

by Tyler Stephen

Apple lets you create a link you can share beyond the maximum of five people who can have continuous shared access. You can create a link to track an item that you can share with anyone.

The link expires after seven days, or you can disable it manually. It immediately stops working as soon as you are within Bluetooth range of the AirTag or Find My item, or if someone you shared the link with is close to it. Airlines have also added a way to use this link for baggage traffic, either for normal use or when your baggage is misplaced.

This requires at least iOS 18.2/iPadOS 18.2 or 15.2 Sequoia on your sharing device and the person who wants to view the link.

Create the AirTag luggage link

Share Item Location under Lost AirTag or Item is the pathway to obtain this link. Tap or click that label to start. First, you’re given a disclosure about what someone with the URL will see. If the item is nearby, you can’t obtain this URL and see an alert about it. Otherwise, tap or click Continue.

Find My generates a URL on a screen labeled Item Location Ready to Share. Tap or click the copy button to copy the URL or tap or click Share Link to use an option on the share sheet.

Apple continues to preserve end-to-end Find My item privacy, even when you’re sharing a link. In fine print, Find My notes, “At least one of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac devices needs to be online to provide updated locations.” That’s because the only way to retrieve the crowdsourced location is via one of those devices.

After the link is created, you can return to the same location to copy the URL. If you want to stop sharing, tap or click Stop Sharing Item Location. Disabled links can’t be reused: Apple generates unique links for each shared item every time.

What the other person sees

If the recipient has an iPhone, iPad, or Mac with an operating system recent enough to support Find My item sharing, the link—labeled Find Lost Item in some contexts, such as when sent via Messages—will prompt to open in the Find My app. Tap or click Continue in Find My. In the Find My app, you see an alert that lost items appear only when viewed in this fashion; tap or click Continue. Finally, you see the item tracked.

For people opening the link on any device other than a supported Apple one, they are taken to a webpage that automatically updates when the item’s reported location changes.

Share the link wisely! Anyone in possession of the link can use it to track the item’s current location for as long as the link is valid.

Once an item is found, Apple automatically disables the links and notifies the lost item’s owner.

Give the link to an airline

Share Item Location can also be used in a privacy-protecting way with airlines and baggage-handling services to report a missing or delayed bag. Apple said 50 airlines had signed on to support the feature. The last count, as of February 2026, was that 36 were online, including American, Delta, and United in the United States, along with major airlines worldwide. However, there’s no official list.

Apple says that safeguards will be in place at airlines so that only a limited number of people with authenticated logins can view shared tracking information.

If your bag is delayed on a supported airline:

  1. In a native Find My app, use the process above to generate a shared item link.
  2. Open the airline’s iPhone or iPad app or go to their website. Find the delayed-baggage form.
  3. In the field labeled Find My in some variation, paste the URL.

Because the 2nd-generation AirTag requires version 26.2.1 or later of Apple’s operating systems to use this kind of item tracking, it is possible that some airlines and baggage-handling services still don’t support these newer trackers. Big organizations tend to lag in updating their devices. I haven’t heard any reports, however.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS
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