Enable Find My
Find My comprises multiple different services blended together into a single app. In this chapter, I explain how to enable Find My on your hardware, requiring a deeper dig into which devices support Find My.
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.
Find My notification network: This later addition, described above in Discover Disconnected Devices, is a one-way notification system that relays location via other people’s internet-connected devices. It can be enabled in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and is an inherent attribute of “items”: AirTags, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, several models of Beats earbuds and headphones, and other Find My items. 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 devices. 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 tab in Find My and the watchOS Find Devices app. 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, 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.
With that in mind, let’s look at how you enable Find My and its two flavors on devices and items.
Enable Find My Device
Local- and internet-based Find My on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac requires an active Apple ID associated with iCloud. You likely already set up Find My when upgrading or setting up your device.
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. In macOS, go to System Settings > iCloud > Show All (Ventura or later), System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud (Catalina to Monterey), or System Preferences > iCloud (Mojave or earlier). If Find My isn’t enabled, turn it. Once Find My is active, you can tap or click the Find My item to access additional settings, like the Find My network or, in iOS/iPadOS, Send Last Location.
Enabled devices are automatically added to your iCloud account’s list of devices. For supported devices, Apple enables Activation Lock. I explain Activation Lock next, and then how to remove devices from your Apple ID account.
Activation Lock Interacts with Find My
Activation Lock is an Apple feature designed to deter theft by preventing erasing and re-using an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch that had Find My enabled. While someone can still erase a device with Find My turned on, they are unable to activate and use the iPhone or iPad without having the Apple ID password for the account with which the device was used. Thieves have some hardware tricks to bypass this, unfortunately, but they don’t always work.
To avoid this when selling an iPhone (or associated Apple Watch), iPad, or Mac, disable Find My before erasing, which requires entering the associated iCloud account’s password. (Apple prompts you to disable Find My before letting you erase your device, typically.) You can also disable it via iCloud.com after a device is out of your hands. Once you disable Find My, tracking is off.
A device with Activation Lock active can still be tracked via Find My even after it’s been erased (starting in iOS 15/iPadOS 15)! And Apple will display a screen to any potential buyer or other user that the device is locked, deterring thefts and duped buyers.
Activation Lock was first released in 2015, and works with the iPhone 5s and later and iPad Air and later. An Apple Watch needs to run watchOS 2 or later. Macs models that support Activation Lock must either have a T2 Security Chip (Intel) or use an Apple silicon M-series processor; in either case, macOS 10.15 Catalina or later must also be installed.
Remove Devices from an Apple ID Account
You might see devices in this list that you or your family member no longer possess or that no longer work. You can remove these items from your Apple ID account in any of several places. This removal also disables Find My on the device if it’s connected to the internet or the next time it connects.
Some devices may offer the option to remove them within the Find My app in iOS/iPadOS and macOS and the Find Devices web app on iCloud.com. You can check by bringing up the action sheet for the device and then tapping or clicking Remove This Device or Remove Device Type. You’re prompted with a warning that removing the device lets someone activate it and use it (Figure 15). After clicking Remove, you must then enter your Apple ID password and click OK.
You can also use one of several other methods to find and remove devices. In each of these locations, after seeing the list of devices, you can tap, click, or swipe on a device to bring up Remove from Account:
iOS/iPadOS: Go to Settings > Account Name and scroll to the bottom.
macOS 13 Ventura or later: Go to System Settings > Account Name and look under Devices.
macOS 10.15 Catalina to 12 Monterey: Go to System Preferences > Apple ID and look in the left-hand devices list.
Apple ID website: Log in and click the Devices link on the left-hand side (Figure 16).
Enable Find My Network Tracking on Devices and Items
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.
Turn on Find My Network on Devices
Apple enables the Find My network in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS by default. Any Apple Watch, AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro, or Max, or supported Beats audio device paired with an iPhone is similarly tracked. You can toggle this setting in the respective Find My configuration locations:
iOS (plus Apple Watch)/iPadOS: Change the Find My network option in Settings > Account Name > Find My > Find My iPhone/iPad (Figure 17).
Figure 17: Enable Find My on your iPhone to have it provide regularly updated information about your location. macOS: Apple has reorganized this multiple times. Click the Options button next to Find My Mac in these locations by version:
Ventura or later: System Settings > Account Name > iCloud
Catalina to Monterey: System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud
Disabling the Find My network 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.
When certain models of iPhone or iPad are 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.
Powering down a device offers up a warning in small type that highlights this change (Figure 18). Tap the warning to get the full details (Figure 19).
Find My Items Are Always Enabled
AirTags are designed to work both through short-range networking directly with a paired iPhone or iPad, and with the crowdsourced system. When you set up an AirTag, it’s enabled for use on the Find My network, as described above in Deploy an AirTag or Accessory.
Third-party Find My network have a slightly different pairing process, but are always active, too; see Manage Third-Party Find My Items.
Apple and Beats audio devices appear under the Devices view in Find My or a Find Devices app, even though they are more like items in many ways. These audio devices lack an independent connection to the internet, and they apparently continuously broadcast their location over Bluetooth when they’re not in active use. AirPods can only be tracked that way, 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.