HOT TOPICS Holiday Shopping Guide Black Friday Apple deals M4 MacBook Air iPhone SE 4 11th-gen i
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect our editorial independence.
Home / iPhone / How-To
UPDATED
How to find and block an AirTag that’s
detected near you
If you've had a notification that an AirTag is detected near you you may be
concerned that you are being tracked by an AirTag. Here's how to find an
AirTag and how to disable it.
By Karen Haslam
Managing Editor, Macworld AUG 14, 2024 2:09 AM PDT
Image: AirTag
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Are AirTags safe?
How an AirTag can track you
How do you know if you are being tracked by an AirTag?
How to find an AirTag that’s tracking you
How to stop an AirTag tracking you
...
Apple’s AirTag is a compact tracking device that can be attached to personal
items to make it easy to find them. Unlike a GPS tracker, which requires cell
service and may drain a battery quickly, an AirTag relies on the distributed Find
My network of iPhones, iPads, and Macs that hundreds of millions of people
around the world carry with them, and uses Bluetooth LE to send a signal to
other devices.
Apple AirTag
Read our review
Best Prices Today: $33.50 at Amazon
Are AirTags safe?
While there are a thousand positive and legitimate ways to use an AirTag,
unfortunately, AirTags have been used to track people without their knowledge.
For example, back in December 2021, the York regional police department in
Canada announced that AirTags were being placed in hidden areas of target cars
parked in public, and then tracked to the driver’s residence, where the cars are
stolen while parked in the driveway. In another incident, a woman claimed that
she found an AirTag hidden in her wheel well after her iPhone alerted her to an
AirTag moving with her. State governments in New York and Pennsylvania have
issued warnings about the misuse of AirTags and similar tracking devices.
Incidents like this are rare (at the time, York police said there had been five
AirTag-involved thefts out of 2,000 in the region). Apple has put some safeguards
in place so that an iPhone, iPad, and AirTag provide varying alerts and
information if the owner who paired the AirTag with their iPhone or iPad isn’t
nearby. There are tools built into the iPhone to find and disable AirTags as well as
an Android app that will scan for AirTags nearby. This is why you may have seen
a warning that an AirTag has been detected near you.
These warnings aren’t restricted to Apple devices: in May 2023, Apple and
Google announced a joint initiative to allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices
to be compatible with unauthorized tracking detection and alerts across iOS and
Android platforms. Read: How to identify unwanted tracking by a compact
Bluetooth device.
Find the best AirTag accessories, key rings, holders, and bag tags we’ve
tested. Also, read our Guide to the AirTag and find out when the new model is
coming out.
How an AirTag can track you
Because AirTags don’t register proximity except to the owner, the only way it can
be used to gather information about you is if it travels with you. An AirTag in your
home, office, or classroom won’t reveal anything to someone trying to keep tabs.
That reduces the “surface area” of unwanted surveillance because the AirTag has
to be in your clothes, wallet, or purse, something else you’re carrying, or in a
vehicle you’re in and using exclusively or at least regularly.
If you’re traveling regularly through urban and suburban areas or on public
transportation, other people’s devices will still pick up and relay location
information about any AirTag that’s with you. That can include something as
innocuous as pulling over to a rest area on a highway, and someone 50 feet
away has an iPhone, or even driving on a highway near other people who have
iPhones or iPads connected to a cellular network.
Bluetooth LE’s range is surprisingly long. I found that an AirTag I temporarily
placed in my car, parked two flights of stairs down from our ground floor and
about 50 feet from the house still provided regular updates about its location via
devices I owned—not to mention those of neighbors walking or driving by.
Everyone’s devices participate in relaying secured, privacy-protecting location
information about their devices and AirTags unless they opt out of the Find My
network. That makes everyone around you a potential participant in tracking you
via an AirTag you don’t know about.
Once the AirTag is in your possession it will relay its location to the owner via the
Find My network and other Bluetooth devices.
How do you know if you are being tracked by an AirTag?
Apple issues alerts to let someone know that there’s an AirTag near them that
isn’t associated with their iCloud account. These alerts happen after some period
of time or while you’re moving and the AirTag is moving with you.
Should an unknown AirTag be tracking you you will see an alert that will state:
“AirTag Found Moving With You”. Apple will invite you to open the Find My app
on your iPhone to go through various options to disable the tracking and locate
the AirTag, discussed below. (Incidentally, you may also see an alert for other
devices moving with you, such as AirPods and other Bluetooth trackers).
Apple recognizes that it could be an innocent case of having borrowed an item
from someone with an AirTag attached or inside it, so one of the options is to
Pause Tracking Notifications.
To make sure you will receive an alert like this follow these steps:
You will need to have an iPhone or iPad running iOS/iPadOS 14.5 or later.
1. Open the Find My app.
2. Tap the Me tab.
3. Tap Customise Tracking Notifications.
4. Make sure the Allow Notifications slider is green (it should be by default).
Via the alert, you can see how long this AirTag has been with you. You can also
see a map of the locations where the AirTag has been tracked in your
possession, which may give you an indication of where you picked it up.
How to find an AirTag that’s tracking you
Luckily Apple makes it easy to locate the AirTag that is tracking you. Here’s what
to do if you have seen a warning from Apple that an AirTag is following.
One option is to use Apple’s Find My app to manually scan for AirTags near you
using the Items That Can Track Me option in the Items tab.
If you have an Android phone, you can also check for unknown AirTags moving
with you using the Tracker Detect app. It’s far less robust than Apple’s Find My
app and needs to be run manually.
1. Play a sound to locate the AirTag
You may find that the tracking AirTag will play a sound once it has been
separated from its owner for a time and then moves.
This happens after what Apple calls an “extended period of time” away from its
paired iPhone or iPad (the company has disclosed elsewhere that this is three
days). After this period, an AirTag makes a beep whenever it’s moved. If you hear
an unexpected beep from something you’re carrying or within your vehicle, then
it’s time to engage in the hunt for an AirTag.
The audio alert winds up being less useful than one might hope. If a stalker or
other person engaged in surveillance can come within range of the AirTag at
least every three days, and they know you don’t have an iPhone or iPad that’s
running 14.5 or later, they can reset that counter. The beep that’s made isn’t
ongoing or particularly loud, and it can be muffled without blocking the Bluetooth
signal substantially.
If you haven’t heard a beep, or want to hear it again, you can force the AirTag to
play a sound.
If you have received an alert about an AirTag that is traveling with you and want it
to make a sound follow these steps:
1. Tap Apple’s Alert.
2. Tap Continue.
3. Tap Play Sound.
You will have the option to play the sound again.
You may find that there is no option to play a sound, in that case, the item may no
longer be near you or it may be back in range of its owner.
Another reason why you may not be able to find the AirTag is that it may have
changed its identifier (which happens regularly). The Bluetooth ID produced by
an AirTag, and by all Apple devices that participate in Find My crowdsourcing,
changes on a regular basis to avoid becoming a reverse tracking item: if it were
persistent, then someone could track your devices based on the “anonymous”
Bluetooth ID. That means that your iPhone or iPad has to notice an AirTag moving
with it over a relatively short period of time.
Another possibility is that the AirTag speaker has been disabled. After reports of
people disabling AirTag speakers, Apple announced that it would add a
notification along with the sound on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch it is moving
with. Apple also says it will adjust the tone sequence that plays when a user has
an unknown AirTag traveling with them to make an unknown AirTag easier to find.
In a 2022 firmware update version 1.0.301, Apple tweaked the unwanted tracking
sound to “more easily locate an unknown AirTag.”
If you own the AirTag it is easy to locate it using the Find My app on an iPhone or
iPad to play an audible sound on the AirTag. As part of macOS 13.1, this feature
also came to the Find My app on Macs.
2. Use Precision Finding to find the AirTag
As well as the option to play a sound the alert will also give you the option to use
Precision Finding if that is available on your device. Your iPhone would need to
support Ultra Wideband via the U1 chip to precisely locate an AirTag, which
includes iPhone 11 and later.
If Apple’s Alert gives you the option for directions tap Go and you should see
directional arrows pointing you in the right direction and a guide to the distance
between you and the device. This should help you locate it.
So, for example, if you were trying to find an AirTag in your car you could use
Find Nearby and follow onscreen directions to locate the AirTag. It should display
distance and direction so you can find the AirTag in your car (although, in this
case, it would probably be easier to play the alert sound.)
3. Search for the AirTag
If you didn’t manage to get it to make a sound and Precision Finding wasn’t the
answer for you you will need to look for the AirTag.
An AirTag (underside)
Image: Apple
The first step is to get familiar with what it looks like. If you haven’t seen an AirTag
before, consult Apple’s site. They have a rounded white top and a silver base, are
somewhat larger than an American quarter or a dollar/pound/single unit coin in
many countries, and about three to four times thicker.
As we mentioned earlier, the AirTag has to be moving with you for Apple to have
sent the alert, so look inside things that you have with you when you move
around:
Check pockets: In clothing, not just pockets but also check inside the lining
or anywhere it could have been sewn in.
Check bags: Look inside purses, luggage, messenger bags, and other
items, unzip and also feel for an AirTag that’s been placed or sewn in.
Check belongings: Someone could have posted you an item with an AirTag
in it.
Examine your car: A car may have a number of locations that are
unreachable or hard to check. Because an AirTag has as long as a year’s
worth of power, someone might wrap it in cotton (to stifle the beep it may
make; see below), slit a fabric seam, slip it in, and sew it back up. Parking
your car away from homes and businesses and using a Bluetooth scanner
can help you pinpoint if one is in your car.
Even if someone doesn’t have access to your home, work, school, or vehicle, and
you don’t receive mail at the address at which you live—you might use a P.O. box
or another person’s address—someone could ship you an item with an AirTag in
it, and when you take that home, they could have your location. If you’re in that
specific situation, you may need to examine all packages received elsewhere
before bringing them home.
4. Find the AirTag using a Bluetooth scanner
Because AirTag regularly emits Bluetooth signals that Apple devices can pick up,
you can use a simple Bluetooth tracker for iOS or iPadOS to scan the area
around you and see if an AirTag is nearby. While these tracking apps can’t
identify AirTag as such—AirTag changes its Bluetooth ID regularly to avoid being
trackable themselves—the apps give you the lay of the landscape. That includes
the names of Bluetooth devices that do label themselves in their broadcasts.
BLE Scanner is a limited but free app that provides a list of Bluetooth devices
your iPhone or iPad can detect, and offers a mapping feature that roughly sorts
them by signal strength into distance away. This is particularly useful if you’re
checking out whether a car has a hidden AirTag; less so inside when there may
be dozens of your own and neighbors’ devices close enough to register. Regular
Bluetooth devices typically identify themselves generically (like my “HP OfficeJet
Pro 9010 series” printer) or specifically, as with the sharing name of your Macs,
iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, FitBit trackers, and so on.
Bluetooth BLE Device Finder (free to download, but $4.99 to unlock needed
features) has the advantage of letting you drill down into Bluetooth technical
details, which may give additional clues about which devices are legitimate and
not.
Bluetooth scanning apps can provide cues about unknown devices near you, which
may include AirTags.
If you can eliminate all known Bluetooth devices, including by powering down
equipment that you’re unsure of, and what’s left has no associated name, it can
be worth looking further by hand.
How to stop an AirTag tracking you
There are a number of ways you can stop the AirTag from tracking you. We’ll run
through them all below including how to find an AirTag in your car and what to do
if there is an AirTag detected near you but you can’t find it.
1. Opt out of the Find My network
While you can’t stop other iPhone, iPad, and Mac users from relaying the location
of the AirTag, you can at least opt yourself out of the Find My network, though
this removes your ability to track your own lost or stolen iPhone, iPad, Apple
Watch, Mac, or an AirTag through this extended network. Earlier versions of iOS
and macOS don’t include support for the Find My network.
In iOS 13 or iPadOS 14 or later go to Settings > Account name > Find My >
Find My iPhone/iPad, and disable Find My network.
In macOS 10.15 Catalina or later, go to the Apple ID preference pane, select
the iCloud link at left, click the Options button to the right of the Find My
Mac item, and uncheck Offline Finding or Find My network (the text varies
by macOS version).
Disabling the Find My network prevents your devices from tracking AirTags or other
Find My items and devices near you.
2. Get the AirTag’s serial number and associated phone number
If you find an AirTag, you can safely determine more information about it without
disclosing to the person who planted it that you’ve done so. The AirTag includes
NFC, useful both for pairing the device initially and for letting any smartphone or
tablet with an NFC reader pull up a URL from the device. That includes Android
phones and other hardware, as it uses an industry standard for NFC encoding.
On following the URL, you’re taken to a page that contains the AirTag’s serial
number. That page can also show a phone number set by the owner if they
marked it lost. The owner isn’t notified in any fashion about the page being
loaded, and Apple preserves the owner’s privacy by providing no direct linkage
at all.
An NFC transmitter lets you pick up information about an AirTag you
discover.
However, in the case of unwanted tracking, the serial number may help if you
pursue civil action, want to obtain a restraining order, or contact law enforcement.
Because AirTag tracking requires device pairing, an iCloud account, and an
iPhone or iPad that’s logged into the account, anyone actively tracking you is also
producing a trail of information stored on their phone, across the cellular
network, and in other places.
A found AirTag displays its serial number via the NFC link and Apple provides instructions
on how to disable it.
Apple uses end-to-end encryption to protect the location information sent from
an arbitrary device to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, which has to use the Find My app
to view it. But the information isn’t secured in the same way on the device. Police
and national investigators would be able to create a close association of logins
and access, as well as prove that an AirTag was paired with a specific iPhone or
iPad. This may deter abusers and others somewhat if they’re aware of how easily
they can be tracked back.
3. Disable the AirTag
Once you’ve found the AirTag and obtained the information you want from it, you
don’t need a hammer or rock to disable it. Unlike most of Apple’s hardware, the
AirTag has a removable battery.
Use pressure to rotate the AirTag’s metal underside counter-clockwise (from
upper right to upper left).
Remove that plate.
Then remove the battery.
What to do if you are being tracked by an AirTag
You probably know already if you’re a candidate for involuntary tracking:
someone in your life (or formerly so) or a family member may show up at
unexpected times in unexpected places when they have no reason to know
you’re there. They may comment in person, via email, or otherwise about your
activities or whereabouts. Or you’re in the middle of or long past a nasty break-
up of a relationship or marriage or have broken off contact with a parent or family
members.
Whatever the case, if you’re in need of help, consult one of these U.S.-based
services the National Domestic Violence Hotline or more specialized
resources for victims of domestic abuse, stalking, and other violence listed by
the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Local law enforcement, the
FBI, or national police in other countries also offer resources.
For our recommendations of Mac Antivirus Software that we have tested see:
Best Antivirus for Mac 2024: Top Security Software Compared.
Author: Karen Haslam, Managing Editor, Macworld
Karen has worked on both sides of the Apple divide, clocking up a
number of years at Apple's PR agency prior to joining Macworld more
than two decades ago. Karen's career highlights include interviewing
Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs’ legacy on the BBC.
Having edited the U.K. print and online editions of Macworld for many years, more
recently her focus has been on SEO and evergreen content as well as product
recommendations and buying advice.
Recent stories by Karen Haslam:
iOS 18 superguide: iOS 18 features, latest update, and what’s coming in iOS 18.2
Apple Black Friday 2024: What you need to know about Apple’s sale
Pair your Mac with a great monitor with these early Black Friday deals
Macworld is your best source for all things Apple. We give you the scoop on what's new, what's best and how to make the most
out of the products you love.
POLICIES
ABOUT
MORE FROM MACWORLD
SUBSCRIBE
Copyright © 2024 IDG Communications, Inc.
Explore the Foundry Network +
TOP OF PAGE
Do Not Sell My Info
Privacy Settings
