Find My (formerly Find My Friends) is an iOS app, created by Apple, that allows you to track the location of other Apple devices.
That includes both your own devices and the devices of friends and family members, allowing for an easy way to share your real-time location with your buddies or relatives.
Find My usually works great. However, there may be times when you see a No Location Found error when opening the Find My app and while trying to track a friend’s location.
In this article, I will talk about the different reasons that might be and how to fix the issue. Typically, you will need some help from the friend you are trying to track, as the issue will most likely lie with their phone, not yours.
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No Location Found – Reasons For Error Message
Here are the main reasons you might get the No Location Found error message when trying to track a friend’s phone.
Their Phone Is Off
Your friend’s phone needs to be on for you to track their location. If they have turned off their phone, real-time location tracking will no longer be available.
This commonly happens when your friend’s phone runs out of battery and dies. Until they charge their phone and turn it on again, you won’t be able to see their location.
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They Don’t Have Wifi or Data
Another possibility is that your friend’s phone isn’t off, but they are not connected to the internet. While some iPhones allow location sharing via satellite, most devices require an active internet connection to share their real-time location.
Therefore, if your friend is not connected to Wifi and runs out of data, you may not be able to see their location.
It’s Been More Than 24 Hours Since They Had Data
If Send Last Location is turned on, you will be able to see your friend’s last known location, even if they do not have any internet access at the moment.
However, if it has been 24 hours since they were connected to the internet, you might see the error message “Offline” or “No Location Found.”
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They Stopped Sharing Their Location
Anyone can stop sharing their location at any time. This ability is important for privacy reasons.
Your friend might have stopped sharing their location with everyone. Alternatively, they may still be sharing their location with most people, but they might have stopped sharing it with you.
You’re in a Region Where It’s Unavailable
Find My is not available in certain regions due to local laws and regulations or technical limitations. If your friend or you are in a region where it is unsupported, you may see an error message.
For example, Find My is not available in South Korea, according to Apple.
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No Location Found on Find My Friends – How to Fix on iPhone?
Photo by JÉSHOOTS/Pexels
So, what can you do if you see an Offline, No Location Found, or Location Services Off error message when trying to see a friend’s location? Here are the top fixes.
Make Sure They Turn on Location Services
Tell your friend to make sure their location services are turned on. They can do that from their privacy settings on their phone.
If their location services are turned off, you can’t see their location.
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Make Sure They Connect to the Internet
Your friend might have gotten disconnected from the internet. Maybe they turned their mobile data off to save money, or they might have disconnected from Wifi.
If they have a mobile phone plan, give them a call and tell them to connect to the internet so you can track them.
Send Them a New Location Sharing Request
Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels
If your friend turned location sharing off, you can send them a new location sharing request.
First, though, you will need to share your location with them. You can do that by opening the Find My app and opening the People tab.
Then, click the plus button and find the person you want to share your location with. Choose how long you want location sharing to be turned on (one hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely).
Once you do that, you can send a request that they share their location with you, but they don’t have to accept it.
Note that your friend might also have turned off the ability for others to send them location sharing requests.
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Set up Notifications for When They Go Online
If a device is offline, you may see a Notify Me When Found option. This allows you to get an email notification when your friend’s iPhone goes online again.
There are other notifications you can set up. For example, Find My allows you to set up notifications for when your friend leaves or arrives at a location, but you must enable notifications for the Find My app, so they can show up in your notifications tab.
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Tell Them to Share Via Satellite or Find My Network
The Find My network option allows your friend to share their location even when offline, using wireless technology that connects hundreds of millions of Apple devices around the world. If your friend is close to someone with an Apple device, they can be found in the network.
iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models with iOS 16.1 and above also support location sharing via satellite, even if there is no Wifi or cellular connectivity. However, availability can vary by region.
However, your friend must first be sharing their location with you via cellular or Wifi data in the Find My app. Once they have done that, they can continue sharing their location with you over satellite even when they don’t have an internet connection.
However, satellite sharing isn’t as reliable as regular location sharing. Your friend should be outside, with a clear view of the sky; if they are inside a building or under heavy foliage, they might not be able to connect to a satellite.
They can share their location by tapping Me at the bottom of the screen in the app and then on Send My Location under My Location Via Satellite.
It can take a few minutes to share a location via satellite, and they can only share their location once every 15 minutes; continuous real-time location sharing is not available.
To see your friend’s location via satellite, you need iOS 16.1 or later, although you don’t need an iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro specifically. You will see their last shared location for seven days.
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Check the Date and Time
Both you and your friend should check the date and time on your respective devices. If the time zone or time is inaccurate, it might cause issues with location sharing.
Make sure it’s set to Set Automatically.
Restart the Find My App
On your end, try closing and restarting the Find My app. While it won’t usually fix the issue, especially if there is a problem on your friend’s side, it’s still worth a try.
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Use Another Location Sharing App
If you can’t get Find My to work, there are other location sharing apps that might work. iSharing is a good app, but there are many other apps designed to help parents track their kids and friends track each other via GPS location sharing.
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Wrapping It Up
You can also bring your iPhone to an Apple Store, so a technician can take a look at figure out what’s wrong with it.
However, without access to your friend’s phone as well, they might not be able to figure out the problem, so it’s best if you go together.
