Why is Find my Friends not working? How to Fix and Find Alternatives

Find My Friends is a popular app that lets users conveniently locate their friends and loved ones, regardless of distance. It is especially useful when planning to meet or coordinate activities with family and friends, whether it be for a weekend hike or a day at the beach.

Unfortunately, Find My Friends has been running considerably slower than usual since the release of iOS 15, leading to many reports that iPhone’s location services have stopped working altogether after the iOS 16 update. “No location found on Find my Friends”, “Find my Friends not updating location”, and “Find my Friends location not available” are some of the most common issues reported in-app.

While this poses an inconvenience when arranging plans with trusted contacts, it can also become an even more significant burden in times of emergency if one cannot rely on Find My Friends to accurately track iPhone by phone number to see someone’s location. As such, we have tried different methods to resolve these issues and discovered suitable alternatives should this problem persist.

UPD: The “Find My Friends” app underwent a transformation in 2019 with the release of iOS 13. The Find My Friends and Find My iPhone applications were amalgamated into a unified feature now known as Find My.

Why Can’t I See My Friends Location on iPhone and What to Do?

If you have noticed Find my Friends not working, then there are a few potential causes. It can be due to network issue, as Find my Friends relies on having an active internet connection. Or perhaps it’s about iOS update.

Here is a list of common reasons and potential fixes that you can try:

Tip 1. Check internet connection

For Find my Friends to work, you’ll need an active internet connection. Try checking your cellular data or Wi-Fi connection. If you’re still having trouble, you can try to reset your network connection.

1. Go to Settings, then General.
2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap reset Network Settings.
   
3. Enter your passcode to confirm.
   

Note: The reset network settings function will delete all your Wi-Fi passcodes and Bluetooth-paired devices.

Tip 2. Force restart Find My Friends

This will clear any cached data that might still be present in the background so that the app has a fresh start with no erroneous data to pick up.

1. For iPhone X and later: Press and swipe up from the bottom of the screen and (For iPhone SE, iPhone 8 earlier: press and hold the Home button).
2. Swipe left or right to look for the Find my Friends app.
3. Swipe up to close it.

Tip 3. Make sure the Apple ID is correct

Find My Friends relies on the Apple ID unique identifier to establish the connection between your devices. So if you try to log into Find My Friends with a different Apple ID email address, it won’t work. In addition, if you have multiple Apple ID devices, merge them as one to have one Apple ID for you.

1. Go to Settings on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your Apple ID in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Verify if it is the right Apple ID that you are using to log in to Find my iPhone.
   
4. If it is not the correct account, change it to the correct one.

Tip 4. Refresh Location Services

Find my Friends relies on location services to work. You can try to force refresh your location data.

Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > then turning location services off and then back on again. You can also enable background refresh by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh, then turn this on and try again.

Tip 5. Make sure that your friend has logged in to Find My Friends

You can try going into their iPhone or iPad settings and make sure that Find My Friends is turned on. Make sure that you’re signed in to the app and that they’ve enabled the location services on their device.

To do so, go to Settings > iCloud> then tap on Find my Friends and make sure the option to share location with “Find my Friends” is on.

Tip 6. Check if Apple supports your friends’ country/region

Find My Friends is available to use in countries around the globe. However, from iOS 13, the app was merged with Find My, so if you do not see the Find my friends app displayed on their device, try checking the Find My app to access the Find my Friends functionality.

Tip 7. Reinvite your friends

You can delete friends from your account and add them again. Just swipe left and select delete, then go and reinvite them again.

Tip 8. Check Date and Time

If your date and time are not set automatically on your iPhone and iPad, Find my Friends may not work correctly. You can adjust the date and time by going to Settings > General > Date & Time > Turn on Set Automatically.

Tip 9. Turn on Share My Location in iCloud

Go into Settings and tap iCloud account. Then tap Find My and turn on Share My Location.

Tip 10. Turn off Hide My Location

If your friend has disabled Share My Location on their Find my Friends account, you will not be able to see their current location. To enable it, ask your friend to go to Settings > iCloud > Find My Friends and turn on the option Share My Location.

Tip 11. Reinstall Find My App

You can also try deleting and then reinstalling the Find My Friends app to resolve any potential issues. This can help resolve any corrupted files or discrepancies that may be causing Find my Friends not to work properly. Just long press Find My app > Remove app >Delete the app. Then reinstall it from the App store.

Tip 12. Update Your Device

Find My Friends relies on having updated hardware and firmware in order for it to work properly, so make sure you are running the most recent version of the Find My Friends app that is compatible with your device.

To check if you’re running the latest version, go to Settings > General > Software Update. If an update is available, tap Download and Install and also set the automatic button to On. For new iPhones, there is an Apple’s Precision Finding feature.

Alternatives to the Find My Friends App – Locating Friend via SMS

If Find my Friends still doesn’t work, there are other alternatives for locating friends that you can use. These are mobile applications that are designed to help you in this case. They use GPS technology to track and locate people in a variety of ways and have proven to be effective in helping people keep track of their loved ones. These services can track iPhone location by phone number and you can use them to find a lost iPhone before it turns off.

For these services to work, you need only the phone number of your friend. The service sends an SMS with a tracking link, and when they click, you get their location.

I found Scannero, Detectico, and GEOfinder to help find a friend’s phone when Find My Friends is not working.

Try GEOfinder.mobi

Conclusions

Even the iPhone features can sometimes fail to work. Thankfully, there are other reliable mobile apps and web services available that offer Find My Friends alternative solutions.

Many third-party tracking tools come with powerful features like call logs monitoring and real-time location tracking that make them worth every penny spent on them. Of course, such services are more suitable for parental control. But there are some easy and fast online trackers for locating your friends when Find My Friends doesn’t work.

You can try Scannero, Detectico or GEOfinder.