How to Disable Location Services (GPS) Tracking on Your iPhone

Prevent iPhone apps from tracking your location with this handy guide

Written by Nicole Levine, MFA

Last Updated: February 4, 2024 Fact Checked

Turning off GPS on your iPhone is easy—you'll just need to disable Location Services in your Privacy & Security settings. If you don't want to disable GPS entirely, you can turn it off for specific apps, or just stop sharing your location with friends and family.

Quick Steps

Open Settings and tap Privacy & Security.
Tap Location Services.
Toggle off the "Location Services" switch and tap Turn Off to confirm.

Steps

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You'll find it on your home screen or in your app library.
You'll see this option in the third group of settings.

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If GPS is enabled on your iPhone, you'll see "On" next to "Location Services" at the top.
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Tap the "Location Services" switch to toggle it off. A pop-up message will warn you that location services will be disabled for all apps.
- If you just want to stop sharing your location with friends and family, but not disable GPS altogether, tap Share My Location here, then toggle the "Share My Location" switch to the Off position.
- If you only want to turn off GPS for specific apps and not disable it altogether, just scroll down to the list of apps that use Location Services, tap an app, and then tap Never.^{[1]
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This turns off the GPS on your iPhone. No apps will be able to access your location.

Community Q&A

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Question

Does Airplane Mode turn GPS off?

Community Answer

It depends on what version of iOS you are running. iPhones running iOS 8.2 or earlier will turn the GPS off when Airplane Mode is enabled. iPhones running iOS 8.3 or newer will keep GPS on when Airplane Mode is enabled.

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Question

Does turning my phone off disable location services?

Community Answer

When you turn your phone back on, location services should automatically be activated. This varies depending on your IOS version.

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Question

If location service is off, can I still use Find my iPhone?

Community Answer

You can use Find my iPhone even if location services are turned off, but not to locate it on a map. If location services are off, you can use Find my iPhone only to audibly ping your device (even if mute is enabled), lock it or erase.

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Tips

Turning GPS off might make some of your apps stop working. However, each app should alert you should there be an issue.

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If you turn off Location Services and lose your iPhone, you can still locate it on a map with Find My iPhone. Just log into Find My and activate Lost Mode to do so.

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