Find My’s expanded location sharing options give you more flexibility.
iOS 27 upgrades your <a href="https://myappsplus.com/internet-accuses-apple-of-photoshop-in-iphone-duo-ads/” title=”Internet Accuses Apple of Photoshop in iPhone Duo Ads”>iPhone with tons of improvements to Apple Intelligence, Siri, child safety, accessibility, Maps and more. You’ll also notice a few minor upgrades for the Find My app, including the option to share your location for a temporary period rather than all the time.
Say you’re traveling with friends, but have made plans for everyone to do their own thing one afternoon. Fine-tuned location sharing lets you keep everyone updated on where you are without worrying about having to turn off the setting after your trip. Or perhaps you’re going on a blind date and you’d feel better if your roommate could track your location for peace of mind.
This option has been available in iOS for some time, but it’s even more customizable now. When an hour is too short but permanent sharing is too long, you have more options.
Set your custom sharing timeframe
Christine Persaud for Engadget
In iOS 26 and prior, you could choose to share your location with someone in Find My for an hour, a day or indefinitely. Now, there’s the option to share for a few days (like the duration of a trip), only a few hours (like while you’re at dinner and the babysitter is on shift), or even just for 15 minutes.
The options appear as For One Hour, For Today, Always or Custom. If you select Custom, you can use rolling dials to choose by days (from one up to 30), hours (1 to 23), or minutes (1 to 59). Or if you prefer, this panel also has the option to pick a specific end date and time so you don’t have to calculate manually.
The minimum amount of time for sharing is 15 minutes. However, you can select any variation of those times, like 1.5 hours or even one day, three hours and five minutes if you want to be precise. This means you don’t have to worry about resetting the sharing location every day for a week while on vacation — or conversely, forgetting to turn it off after you’ve set it to indefinite.
As soon as you share your location, the person can tap your name on their People list in Find My to see exactly where you are. Once the time elapses, they’ll no longer be able to see your location.
You can temporarily hide your location, too
Another new Find My feature in iOS 27, which you can already use if you’ve installed the iOS 27 beta, is the option to temporarily hide your location from someone with whom you share location indefinitely. Maybe you might want to hide where you are before you pop into a local bakery or flower shop to treat your love so they aren’t alerted ahead of time. Perhaps you plan to visit your best friend who doesn’t know you’ve flown into town. Surprise parties are another obvious use case.
If you always share your location with someone, like a spouse or child, you can hit Hide Location to pause sharing. They won’t know you’ve done this; they’ll just see that your location can’t be found if they check. Pausing is more convenient than removing sharing settings and having to re-add them later.
If you want to try these features now, you can do so by downloading the iOS 27 public beta ahead of the official release. But keep in mind you may have to deal with a buggy experience until the kinks are worked out: betas are the testing phase for those willing to participate. If you decide to go ahead, make sure to back up your iPhone first as a precautionary measure.
