How to Manage Location Settings on iPhone

If you care about personal privacy, let's learn with WebTech360 which apps can access location on iPhone and how to tweak location settings for any apps you don't need !

Here's how to manage location settings on your iPhone so you can choose which apps you want to grant location access to and allow them to track you in the background .

How to Manage Location Settings on iPhone

• How to view location service settings
• Choose location access per app
• Find apps that are tracking you
• Don't forget Apple's system service

How to view location service settings

Open Settings and go to Privacy > Location Services to see all the apps that have access to your location.

You can disable Location Services at the top of the page to disable it for each app. However, you shouldn't do that with some apps like Maps if you need to find your way around often.

Instead, scroll through the list and find the location settings for each app.

Choose location access per app

After tapping an app, you can choose between 3 or 4 location access options for it. The best option varies according to how you want to use the app.

Here's what each option means on iPhone:

• Never : Never allow the app to locate your location.
• Ask Next Time : Let the app ask for location permissions each time you use it.
• While Using the App : Only allow the app to locate when you use it.
• Always : Allows the app to regularly access your location, even when not using it.

You can also turn off Precise Location for each app. When this is done, the app can only access the approximate location, rather than the exact location.

Find apps that are tracking you

iPhone shows an arrow in the status bar whenever an app accesses your location. If the arrow is colored as shown below, it means that the app is accessing your current location.

However, if you only see a colorless arrow in the status bar, the app has the ability to access your location if it needs to. This is where you choose to always grant location access to certain apps. This can be useful when you want to get location-based reminders and automations.

Another arrow that appears next to each app in the Location Services settings will show apps that have accessed your current location.

• Gray arrow : This app used your location in the last 24 hours.
• Dark purple arrow : This app is accessing your current location.
• Purple Hollow Arrow : This app has the ability to access your location at any time.

When using different apps, iPhone occasionally alerts you if an app is accessing a hidden location on the system. When this happens, you can see the location data provided to that app and choose whether to allow it to track you in the background.

Don't forget Apple's system service

By default, the location services indicator arrows do not appear in the status bar for key iOS functions, such as time zone settings. To view these settings, tap System Services under Location Services settings on iPhone.

This will list each of Apple's location-based services, tell you which apps have used your location recently, and give you the option to disable those you don't want to use.

Overall, tightly managing your location settings is a great way to strengthen your privacy on iPhone. In fact, you should check these settings regularly for the right changes in time.