It’s been a couple of weeks since Apple rolled out iOS 15 to everyone and many of you may just be experiencing all the new things it offers for the first time. One of the apps that have been refined in the new OS is Find My which now supports continuous sharing of your live location. This means people don’t get periodic location updates when you share them but can track your real-time position as you move around.
In previous posts, we’ve explained how you can set up Live Tracking on Find My and see your friend’s live location on iOS 15, and here, we’re going to help you set up Find My so that you get notified every time your friend’s location changes.
Related: iOS 15 Find My: How to see someone’s Live Location
How to get a notification alert when someone arrives at or leaves from a location
The new and improved Find My app on iOS now allows you to set notifications for when your friend’s location changes. To set up notifications for when your friend arrives or leaves a location, open the Find My app, select the ‘People’ tab at the bottom, and tap on your friend’s name.
When you open a person’s name, you should see their location on the map as well as their address in the text under their name. To set location alerts for this person, tap on the ‘Add’ option under ‘Notifications’.
In the overflow menu that appears, select the ‘Notify Me’ option.
Related: How to Use Find My Friends Live Tracking on iOS 15
Select an alert condition
The ‘Notify Me’ screen will now pop up on your screen. From inside the ‘When’ section, choose either ‘<person> Arrives’ or ‘<person> Leaves’.
Choose a location to mark for alerts
After that, choose a location you want to select as the base for your alerts. Depending on how you configure it, you will get notifications when this person leaves or arrives at your chosen location. Among the locations you can choose, you can pick your friend’s current location, your current location, or select the ‘New Location’ option from under the ‘Location’ section.
If you select the last option, you will have the option to choose a custom location of your choice, somewhere where neither you nor your friend currently is located. You can add your location by moving across the map on your screen and planting the red-colored location pin at your desired location.
Next, you will need to set a location radius, that is the area around which location alerts will be triggered. You can one of three options to choose from – Small, Medium, or Large. Selecting a larger radius will notify you when your friend is near your preferred location rather than at the location.
Once you’ve added your location and selected a location radius, tap on ‘Done’ at the top right corner to confirm it.
Related: How To Get ‘Left Behind’ Alerts When You Forget Your Apple iPhone, Watch, or Other Devices
Select how often you want to be alerted
After you’ve chosen a location as a trigger, it’s time to decide how often you want to be notified when your friend arrives or leaves this location. If you choose the ‘Only Once’ option under ‘Frequency’, you’ll only be alerted once when the person reaches or goes away from the selected location.
However, if you wish to be alerted every time they arrive at or leave the location you chose, you will have to select the ‘Every Time’ option. When you select this option, your friend will get an alert on their iPhone that they must approve to enable recurring notifications. This alert will only be sent to them when they arrive or leave your selected location for the very first time.
How to add alerts for more than one location
Find My lets you configure alerts for others’ whereabouts in such a way that you’re notified when this person arrives at or leaves more locations than one. You can create separate alerts for the same person for when they reach or leave multiple locations by first going to Find My > People and selecting this person’s name.
If you’ve already created a location alert for this person, it should be visible under ‘Notify Me’ inside the ‘Notifications’ section. To create more alerts with different criteria, tap on the ‘Add’ option here and repeat the same steps as you followed when creating the first alert.
Related: How to Track an iPhone: Best 5 Ways To Use
How to pause all alerts from someone on Find My
If you wish to stop all location alerts from your friend temporarily, then you can use the ‘Pause’ option for their ‘Notifications’. To do this, go to Find My > People and selecting the person’s name whose location alerts you want to pause.
If you’ve already created a location alert for this person, it should be visible under the ‘Notifications’ section. To pause these alerts for a specific duration, tap on the ‘Pause’ option on the screen.
You will now see the ‘Pause Notifications’ screen. Here, select the date on the calendar you want to pause alerts for. Find My will stop sending you alerts until the end of the day of your selected date. Once you’ve configured how long you want to pause alerts for, tap on ‘Done’ at the top right corner.
How to disable notifications you create
If you no longer wish to be alerted by someone’s location changes on your iPhone, you can disable alerts for this person from within the Find My app. To do that, go to Find My > People and select the person you want to disable alerts for.
Swipe up on the next screen and select the alert you want to disable from the ‘Notifications’ section.
Next, tap on the ‘Delete Notification’ option at the bottom.
Confirm the process by selecting ‘Delete Notification’ in the overflow menu that appears.
That’s all there is to know about getting notifications when your friend arrives/leaves a location on Find My.
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