How to Turn Off iMessage Location Without Them Knowing

Nicklaus Borer

May 26, 2024

Whatever your reasons for not wanting people to know where you are, it can be done. You might be a private person or simply want to head to a favorite store to buy your loved one a gift. We tell you how to turn off iMessage location without them knowing.

iMessage is one of the most popular messengers, used by 16.25% of the population. One of the questions many people ask is, does iMessage notify when you stop sharing location? Thankfully, it doesn’t. However, your contacts will be notified when you turn tracking back on, so this will reveal to them that you stopped sharing for a time. As such, if you want to avoid this, you’re going to need to think of another solution instead. Thankfully, there are plenty of options how to stop sharing location without notifying, which we’ll cover in this article.

As promised, here are the best ways you can stop sharing location without notifying iMessage users. Here are our recommendations:

Disable Location Services

When you don’t want to share location iMessage, one of the easiest ways and quickest ways is to disable location services. Here are the steps to follow:

Open settings.
Tap on ‘privacy’
Choose ‘Location Services’
Then click on ‘manage location access’
Finally, choose which apps you want to share location with by using the toggle.

Although iPhones are the only ones with iMessage, Android users might also be interested in turning off their location like this. Here’s how:

Go onto Google Maps.
Go to the menu inside the application.
Select ‘location sharing’
Then, go to ‘manage location access’
Choose the apps you don’t want to share or toggle off your location altogether.

Try a Third-Party App — LocaChange

A third-party way of hiding your location is by using the app LocaChange. This sets you up with a virtual location and makes your device show as being somewhere else. It means you can turn off your location, but you also have no cause for concern about the whole ‘if you stop sharing location does it notify?’ question.

To do this, download LocaChange and then launch it. You’ll need to connect your phone to the computer on which it was downloaded. You can do this via USB or Wi-Fi. Then, choose the location you want to appear at.

Of course, this method does have its downsides. If you get in trouble, for example, and someone needs to find you, they will think you’re somewhere else entirely and it could delay getting help.

Another simple way of stopping your iMessage location from being shown is to stop sharing your location with a specific contact. Here’s how:

Select the chat you want in iMessage;
Select ‘message‘ after clicking on their name;
Click on ‘stop sharing my location’.

Don’t worry, just because you’re finding them and doing this action through a message conversation with them doesn’t mean they’ll be notified of you doing so and nothing will be sent to them.

You can also stop sharing your location by using Find My. Here are the steps:

Find the ‘Find My‘ app and open it;
Select ‘People’;
Choose the person from whom you would like to hide the location;
Click on the person’s name and then scroll down to select ‘stop sharing my location’.

Turn On Airplane Mode

One quick method how to pause iMessage location is to turn on airplane mode. If you realize you’re somewhere and you don’t want someone to know where you are, a quick swipe down will allow you to activate airplane mode in a couple of seconds. When you turn this off, iMessage won’t share your location, and there will be no notifications for anyone. It’s easy and discreet for however long you need it — provided you don’t need to be connected for any other reason. Here are the steps:

Open settings;
Find the picture of the airplane;
Tap on it.

Conclusion

So, there you have several ways to hide your location from contacts on iMessage. Don’t forget that if you stopped sharing location with iMessage directly, your contact won’t be notified. However, when you begin sharing with them again, they will receive a notification saying so. This might then highlight that you’ve been hiding your whereabouts from them for a period. If this is something you’re concerned about, choose one of the other methods.