Find My is the feature Apple builds into every iPhone, iPad and Mac to locate a missing device — and to share your location with the people you trust. It is genuinely useful, and also the source of endless confusion: a location that will not refresh, a friend showing as Location Not Available, or a status message that nobody ever explains.
This site is an independent, plain-English help desk for exactly those moments. Every guide answers one real question, with the steps for current versions of iOS and macOS. Start with the Find My not updating fix, learn how to request someone's location, or use the device check above when a guide asks for your IP address or device details.
What Find My actually does
Find My combines two things people often mix up. Find My iPhone locates your own Apple devices — including offline ones, via the encrypted Find My network of nearby Apple devices — and offers Play Sound, Lost Mode and Erase. Find My Friends, now folded into the same app, is consensual location sharing between people. Nobody can see your location unless you have chosen to share it, and you can stop sharing at any time.
Why locations go stale or disappear
Almost every 'Find My not working' report comes down to a short list of causes: the other device is off, out of battery, or has no signal; Location Services or Precise Location is off; Low Power Mode is throttling background updates; the date and time are wrong; or sharing was paused. Our troubleshooting guide works through them in order, and the Live status explainer covers what the app is actually telling you.
Privacy, in plain terms
Location sharing in Find My is opt-in and reciprocal only if both people choose it. You can see who you share with — and revoke it instantly — in the People tab. A website (including this one) cannot read your location without an explicit browser prompt, and it can never read your device's MAC address; that is why our MAC address guide shows you where to find it in Settings instead.