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

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Prevent iPhone apps from tracking your location with this handy guide
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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

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

Steps

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  1. You'll find it on your home screen or in your app library.
  2. You'll see this option in the third group of settings.
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  3. If GPS is enabled on your iPhone, you'll see "On" next to "Location Services" at the top.
  4. 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]
  5. This turns off the GPS on your iPhone. No apps will be able to access your location.
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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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    Not Helpful 13 Helpful 19
  • 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.
    Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
    Thank you for your feedback.
    If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
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    Not Helpful 9 Helpful 10
  • 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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      References

      1. ↑ https://support.apple.com/en-us/102647

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      • Mohan Menon

        Apr 9, 2016

        "Very useful guidance on disabling GPS as I was charging for GPS use unknowingly by the net operator and also my ..." more
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