How to Turn Off Find My iPhone (Even When It's Greyed Out)

Find My is the feature that locates a lost iPhone and, through Activation Lock, stops a thief from using it. You turn it off before you sell or trade in a phone, before some repairs, or when you're handing the iPhone to someone else. On recent iPhones there's one extra hurdle that confuses a lot of people, and it's there on purpose. Here's the full process.

Turn off Find My on your iPhone

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top.
2. Tap Find My.
3. Tap Find My iPhone.
4. Switch Find My iPhone off.
5. Enter your Apple Account password and tap Turn Off.

That also turns off Activation Lock for this iPhone. The phone no longer appears in the Find My app on your other devices.

Switch greyed out? Stolen Device Protection is on

Apple is explicit: you can't turn Find My off while Stolen Device Protection is enabled. So turn that off first:

1. Open Settings and tap Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode).
2. Enter your passcode.
3. Tap Stolen Device Protection and switch it off.

If you're at home or work, it switches off straight away. If you're somewhere the iPhone doesn't recognise as familiar, a security delay starts: Apple uses an hour's wait plus a second Face ID check for sensitive changes. That's the feature doing its job, making life hard for a thief who knows your passcode. The simple answer is to do this at home.

Turn off Find My without the iPhone

If the phone is broken, lost or already with its new owner, use a browser:

1. Go to icloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple Account.
2. Select the iPhone from the list of devices.
3. Choose Remove This Device.

If the iPhone is	What happens
Offline	Activation Lock is removed at once; the phone leaves your list after 30 days
Online	It can't be removed, but you can mark it Ready for Repair or Trade In for 30 days

Apple adds a catch: if an offline phone comes back online after those 30 days and is still signed in to your account, it reappears and Activation Lock switches back on. So if you can, sign out of your Apple Account on the phone itself as well.

Selling? You may not need to do this separately

When you factory reset an iPhone with Erase All Content and Settings, it asks for your Apple Account password and signs the phone out, which turns off Find My and Activation Lock as part of the erase. If you're selling, the cleanest order is: back up, turn off Stolen Device Protection, then erase. Signing out of your Apple Account in Settings also removes the iPhone from Find My.

Turning it off for a repair

Apple and many repair shops ask you to turn off Find My before they work on an iPhone, so the phone isn't locked to your account during testing. On recent iOS versions, the Ready for Repair option on iCloud.com marks the phone as being repaired instead, so you don't need to switch everything off. Ask the repairer which they need.

Should you turn it off at all?

For everyday use, no. Find My is what lets you locate a lost phone, play a sound to find it down the back of the sofa, and lock it remotely if it's stolen. Keep it on unless you're selling, repairing or giving the phone away. It's part of a sensible security set-up along with a strong passcode and a password manager; my look at whether LastPass is safe covers that side. If someone else's tracking app is the worry rather than Find My, my review of whether the Burner app is safe looks at a different kind of privacy tool.

Turning off Find My for AirPods or a Mac

Find My covers more than the iPhone. AirPods and Apple Watch linked to your iPhone are included automatically, so removing or unpairing them is how you take them off your list; for AirPods, remove them from the Find My app before you give them away. On a Mac, the switch is in System Settings, your name, iCloud, Find My Mac. The iCloud.com method works for every device type, which is handy when you're tidying up old gadgets in one go.

Check it worked

Open the Find My app on another device signed in to your account, or visit icloud.com/find, and look at the device list. If the iPhone is still there after you switched it off, give it a few minutes and refresh. If it's still listed after that, sign out of your Apple Account on the iPhone, which removes it for certain.

Don't worry if Find My says the phone was last seen at an old location; that's simply the last place it reported in before you switched it off.

My verdict

Settings, your name, Find My, Find My iPhone, off. If the switch won't budge, turn off Stolen Device Protection first, ideally at home to avoid the security delay. If the phone is already gone, remove it at icloud.com/find, and sign out of your Apple Account on it if you can.

Frequently asked questions

How do I turn off Find My iPhone?

Settings, your name, Find My, Find My iPhone, then switch it off and enter your password.

Why can't I turn off Find My iPhone?

Stolen Device Protection is on. Turn it off in Settings, Face ID and Passcode first.

How do I turn off Find My without the phone?

Sign in at icloud.com/find, choose the iPhone and select Remove This Device.

Does a factory reset turn off Find My?

Yes. Erase All Content and Settings signs you out and removes Activation Lock.

Why is there a delay turning off Stolen Device Protection?

You're away from a familiar location. It protects you if a thief knows your passcode.