How to see, delete, and turn off your location history on iPhone

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to view, delete, and disable your iPhone’s location history with simple steps to enhance your privacy and control your data.

You can find your location history using Apple’s Significant Locations feature, and Google Maps’s history logging/timeline.

The reason for this could be to help you recall the spots you visited. The past location history of your iPhone can also be used to prove your presence at that location for legal reasons or otherwise.

See your location history on iPhone

When you set up your new or restored iPhone, you’re given the option to turn on location services. You probably enabled it during setup or later (from settings), as most apps like food delivery, taxi, weather, and payments apps require your location in order to work. When you enable location services, Significant Locations are also enabled.

As per Apple, Significant Locations “keeps track of the places you recently visited, as well as when and how often you visited them.” This end-to-end encrypted location data is used to offer personalized services like predictive traffic routing.

Follow these steps to check your iPhone location history.

1. Open the Settings app and tap Privacy & Security.
2. Tap Location Services from the top.
3. Scroll to the end and tap System Services.
4. Tap Significant Locations, and you will see your recent locations where you have visited with date, approximate position on the map, and a few other details.

If you had not enabled Significant Locations, you can do it now and check back after a few days.

Related: How to see places where your iPhone photos were taken

Use Google Maps to find your location history

You can see the location history in Google Maps only if:

• You have the Google Maps app installed on your iPhone
• You allowed Google Maps to always access your location (iPhone Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Google Maps > Always).
• You signed in to Google Maps using your Google account
• You have enabled Location History (Google Maps > profile picture icon > Your data in Maps > Location History > Turn on).

Use these steps to find your location history in Google Maps on iPhone.

1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile picture.
2. Tap Your data in Maps and hit See & delete activity under Web & App Activity or Location History.
3. You should see today’s location history with your travel routes and stops. It also shows other Maps activities, such as places you have searched for on maps, ones you have gotten directions for, and more. You can tap the tiny calendar icon to find the Maps Activity for the exact date you want.

You can also see and manage your location history in Google Maps Timeline:

• iPhone: Google Maps app > profile picture > Your timeline.
• Computer: google.com/maps/timeline and sign in with your Google account.

Delete and stop saving location history on iPhone

You can easily prevent Apple and Google from storing the history of places you visit.

Turn off Significant Locations

Significant Locations are encrypted, and Apple can’t read them. But, if you don’t feel comfortable still having this data out there, you can turn off the toggle for Significant Locations to prevent Apple from storing this data.

1. Open Settings and tap Privacy & Security.
2. Tap Location Services > System Services.
3. Tap Significant Locations.
4. From here, first, tap Clear History, and it will delete your recorded locations from all your Apple devices with this Apple ID.
5. Next, toggle off Significant Locations > Turn Off.

Turn off Google Maps location history or timeline

By default, your Google Maps location history is auto-deleted after 18 months. But you can change it to 3 months, 36 months, or even choose not to auto-delete.

1. Tap your profile picture inside Google Maps and go to Your data in Maps.
2. Select See & delete activity under Web & App Activity.
3. Tap Auto-delete.
4. Choose a different option for Auto-delete activity older than.

You can also delete all or a specific timeframe of Google Maps location history.

1. Return to the Maps Activity screen by following the steps above.
2. Tap X next to a map activity to delete it. You can also tap the Delete button and choose to delete all history for today, a custom range, or all time.

Finally, you also have the option to stop Google from saving your location and other app activity related to Google services.

1. Go to the Maps Activity screen in Google Maps.
2. Tap Controls from the top. You can also tap Saving to Web & App Activity from the History tab.
3. Tap Turn off under Web & App Activity and hit Turn off or Turn off and delete activity.

Check out next:

• How to fix location errors in an iPhone app
• Ways to stop iPhone from tracking your location
• How to get your house, car, or face blurred out in Apple and Google Maps for increased privacy