They know where I have been: check what is sharing your location on iPhone
If someone repeats details of where you were, and you did not tell them, there is usually a specific reason. Most of the time it is a setting rather than a hidden app, and settings can be found.
Work down this list in order. The items near the top are the most common by a wide margin, and none of them require anything to have been installed on your phone.
Using Android instead? Read the Android version of this page.
Before you change anything, please read this
If someone is monitoring you, the moment they lose that access is often the moment things get more dangerous. Family violence services see this pattern often enough that it shapes all of their advice.
So, three things before you touch a setting:
- Do not uninstall an app you suspect, and do not factory reset your phone, as your first move. It can tell the other person that you know.
- Removing it also removes the proof. If you might ever want to go to the police, that proof matters.
- Talk to someone first. 1800RESPECT is free, confidential and open 24 hours, on 1800 737 732. Call from a phone you trust, not from the one you are worried about.
None of this means you have to keep a phone you do not trust. It means the order matters, and the safest order starts with a plan and a person, not with a delete button.
One more thing worth knowing now. Talking about this near the phone can be enough. If monitoring software is running, it may be able to hear the room. Have this conversation somewhere else, or on another device.
1. Location sharing you turned on once
Sharing that made sense during a relationship often keeps running long after it stops making sense.
Open Settings, tap your name at the top, then Find My, then Share My Location. You will see everyone you currently share with. Tap a name to see the options.
Also check the sharing built into messaging apps. WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat and Instagram all have their own live location features that are completely separate from the one above, and turning off one does not turn off the others.
2. Your Apple Account, signed in somewhere else
If someone is signed into your account on their own device, they may be able to see your location through it without ever touching your phone.
Open Settings and tap your name. Scroll down past the settings list and you will see every device signed into your Apple Account. Look for anything you do not recognise, or a device you sold or gave away.
3. Family Sharing
Settings, your name, then Family Sharing (shown as Family on some versions). Family features are designed to share location, so this is worth checking even if the arrangement felt harmless when it was set up.
4. Safety Check
If your iPhone runs iOS 16 or later there is a tool built for exactly this situation. Settings, Privacy & Security, then Safety Check. It shows you, in one place, who you share things with and which apps have access.
It also has an Emergency Reset that stops all sharing at once. That is a powerful button and it is very visible to anyone who loses access, so please read the warning above before you use it.
5. Significant Locations
Your iPhone quietly keeps a history of places you go. Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, scroll to the bottom for System Services, then Significant Locations. It is protected by your passcode or Face ID. If someone knows your passcode, they can read it.
6. Which apps can see your location
Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services. Go through the list. Anything set to Always that does not need to be is worth a second look.
Two more, whatever phone you have
Your car. Modern cars share location too. Check the car's app, its driver profiles, its digital key sharing and its Bluetooth pairings for anyone who should not be there. If your car came from, or was set up by, the person you are worried about, treat this as a likely answer rather than an unlikely one.
Your phone plan. If you are on someone else's plan, the account holder can usually see call and message records. That is not hacking, it is how the plan works, and it is worth knowing.
If your phone has warned you about an unknown tracker, or you think a small tag may have been slipped into a bag or a car, that has its own page.
Before you switch anything off
Turning off location sharing is visible to the other person, and some apps notify them directly. If that could put you at risk, please read the warning above again and talk to 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 first, from a phone you trust.
If you decide it is safe to change things, change them together at one planned moment rather than one at a time over weeks. A slow trickle of changes is easier to notice.
What this page will not do
We will not tell you your phone is clean. Nobody honest can.
Monitoring software that is any good is built to hide, and the reliable way to find it is a forensic examination of the phone, usually done by police. Any website or app promising to scan your phone and give you a yes or no answer is overselling what it can do, and most of them are selling something. We are a not-for-profit and there is nothing to buy at the end of this.
Next: what to do, in a safe order
Where to get real help
- In immediate danger: call 000.
- 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Free, confidential, 24 hours, by phone or online chat. For anyone affected by domestic, family or sexual violence.
- Police assistance line: 131 444, for threats to your safety that are not an emergency.
- WESNET Safety Net Australia: techsafety.org.au. Specialists in technology and family violence. If you use an Android phone and you think spyware may be on it, they ask people to contact them from a safe device.
- eSafety Commissioner: esafety.gov.au. The national regulator. It has legal powers to help with serious online abuse, including image-based abuse.