How to update AirTag Location

Hi miyalung,

We're glad you've reached out through Apple Support Communities for help with your AirTag. We're happy to help in any way we can.

So you're aware, an AirTag may update its location periodically when within range of an Apple device configured for use with the Find My network. If it's not updating its location when you're away from home, you'll want to ensure that your family members are using compatible Apple devices updated to the latest software versions.

The following guide has more information:

Find your keys, wallet, and more with AirTag - Apple Support

It's important to note that "the Find My network isn't supported in South Korea and might be unavailable in other regions due to local laws."

We're here for you if you've got any questions.

Have a great day!

I've been having the same issue. I put the tag on my cat but my phone can't find her once she leaves the house. Apple Support say that the tags aren't tracked by GPS, but by Bluetooth on other iPhones that are connected to the Find My network.

So in other words you need to hope your AirTag is nearby someone else who has an iPhone on the Find My network to track them..

Like I explains above, it won’t update the location if it’s in range of the same iPhone. For a frequent location update, thé tag has to be encountered by multiple iPhones. This is an anti-stalking feature.

You can’t track a tag by hoping to get frequent location updates from the same iPhone that accompanied the tag. You will get one location update from that iPhone and then the iPhone will realize that the tag is moving along with it and will stop updating the tag’s location. To get another update, the tag will have to be in range of another iPhone.

Apple spoke of the anti-stalking frairies that they implemented with Air Tags, but thy never went into detail about how the anti-stalking feature was implemented other than you get notified after 3 days that someone’s tag has been moving with your phone. I always wondered how Apple thought it was sufficient to notify if someone stalking you 3 days later. But from my experiment, I believe that what Apple didn’t dismiss is that the iPhone detects that someone else’s tag is accompanying it much quicker than it lets it’s user know, so the iPhone simply stops reporting the location of someone else’s tag that’s accompanying it.

therefore, you can’t track your truck with an Air Tag. You could track your runaway dog because it’s tag will be detected by multiple iPhones along the path the dog runs. But, if someone with an iPhone steals your dog, you won’t be able to track its Air Tag because the At Tags location will not be reported by the thieve’s iPhone more than once.

This means that the Air Tag can’t be used as a theft tracking device. It’s purpose is to track a list item, which is likely to be encountered by multiple iPhones.

If your husband walks the dog with an AirTag on its collar, the AirTag should be encountered by iPhones of the people whom he meets during the walk, and those iPhones will report their location when the AirTag is in their proximity.

On a school bus, the location will most likely not be updated during the route because the AirTag will be traveling alongside all the iPhones on the same bus. So, each of those iPhones will report the AirTag’s location once and then realize that the AirTag is moving along with them and will cease further location updates.

When you leave your purse in your friend’s car, you already know where you left the bag. Right? Are you complaining that you can’t track your friend’s whereabouts by planting an AirTag in her car? Because that would be stalking your fiend, and Apple specifically implemented the mechanisms that defeat stalking attempts. Also, if you have the iPhone in the same purse that you left in the back seat of your friend’s car, you (or your husband) can track your iPhone and even make it sound an alarm so that your friend would hear it, look back, and see your purse in the back seat.

As for your missing dog, I’m sorry for what happened. Unfortunately, I can’t follow your story, though. If you think that something didn’t work correctly with the AirTag tracking your dog’s location, and you want others to understand what you think didn’t work as designed, you may want to consider simplifying it (e.g. removing the details of poison ivy spraying, kids soccer practice, etc.) and putting some commas there in appropriate places, so that the story could be followed. I re-read that story multiple times trying to understand what you are attempting to say, and I can’t make any sense of it.

Apple specifically said the AirTag was not a pet tracking device. I bought a Chipolo One tag and put it on my dog’s collar, but this is just a backup plan. I take other precautions not to let my dog run away. If she does, the tag may or may not help. It’s certainly not going to hurt, and since there is no monthly fee, it’s a cheap ($30) security blanket to make me feel that in the worst case scenario, there will be a way for me to possibly identify the general area where my dog may be running.

i was very disappointed in the way the Chipolo One tag’s location wasn’t updated frequently enough during my tests until I realized that my tests were faulty. I was testing the frequency of the tag’s location by having the same phone move alongside the tag. After trial and error I realized that it was working as designed. When the tag’s location is encountered by multiple iPhones that do not move in the same pattern as the tag, the tag’s location is updated frequently.

Another proof that the AirTag works as designed.

Tonight I took my dog for a 30-minute walk. She had a Chipolo One tag on he collar. We came back, had dinner, and she went to bed. I took her collar off, put it on the coffee table and two hours later realized that the Chipolo tag went on her collar anymore. I opened the Find My app on my iPhone and saw that the Chipolo tag location was reported 7 minutes ago half a mile feom

my house. Naturally, I thought it was a erroneous location, so I tried to “Play Sound” on it, but the Find My app

reported that the Chipolo One tag was too far away from the phone for the sound to be played. Then, I realized that the Chipolo One tag fell off while I was walking my dog two hours earlier.

so, I decided to go and try to find the Chipolo Tag. It was 10:45 PM and pitch dark outside. I moved the “Notify when found” slider to the “On” position and went outside. I was assuming that the location that was reported 7 minutes earlier was correct, so I was walking toward that location. Again, the location reported was half a mile away. I was holding the phone in my hand with the screen on, and as I was approaching the reported location, I got an alert on the phone that the Chipolo Tag was found. So, I figured I entered the Bluetooth range of the Chipolo one Tag. At this point, I decided to Play Sound via thé Find My app, the app tried to connect, and reported that it couldn’t play the sound. Then I put the “Notify when found” slider in the “On” position again and continued waking toward the location reported earlier. Again, I got a notification that the Chipolo One tag was found, and again when I tried to play the sound, the Find My app reported that the tag was too far away. As I hadn’t reached the location reported earlier on the map of the Find My app, I re-enabled the “Notify when found” slider, and I continued waking toward the location reported on the map earlier. I got another notification on the iPhone (for the third time) that the Chipolo One tag was found. When I tried to Play Sound for the third time, I heard the sound played by the Chipolo One tag. As the Chipolo Ome tag doesn’t have the proximity feature that the Apple AirTag does (when it directs you where the tag is with the indication in the app), I had to rely on my ears to move closer to the Chipolo One tag. Because it was late at night, with no traffic on the side road where I was, I could easily locate the Chipolo One tag using my hearing. I had to cross the street to the other side, turned the flashlight on in my phone, and found the Chipolo Tag on the grass. It was actually on the side of the road that it was located in the Find My app earlier when I realized that the tag was not on the dog collar. So, not only the location was reported correctly, but even the correct side of the road was correctly reported. In fact, it was lying in the grass EXACTLY where it had been reported on the Find My app earlier, when I was still at home, trying to locate it.

I doubt it was located by an iPhone of a passerby, as this road is off the beaten path, and there are no people waking there so late at night. I’m pretty sure it was located by an iPhone belonging to a driver of a passing car.

This proves that the AirTag or Chipolo Tag work exactly as designed.

The secret here is that the location of the tag will not be reported if the iPhone realizes that the tag moves alongside the iPhone itself, which is an anti-stalking feature.

So, if you plant the tag on your child and expect that his location on the bus will be updated regularly, it’s not going to happen because every phone on the bus will realize that the tag is moving alongside and will stop reporting the location as an anti-stalking feature.

If you put. Tag on your dog’s collar and expect to monitor the path is the dog walker whom you hired to walk

your dog via the walker’s iPhone, you are not going to get regular location updated because the walker’s iPhone will realize that the tag is moving alongside and will stop reporting the location. But, if the dog walker encounters another person with the iPhone, that iPhone will report the location.

However, if your dog runs away with a tag on its collar and it encounters people with iPhones when it’s on the loose or if it runs near the houses with iPhones inside those homes that are in Bluetooth range of the tag, you will get fairly regular location updates of your dog roaming around.

I think I determined what was causing mine not to update properly. By default, all of my tags had the option to not alert me when left at home. After removing all “Notify me, except at” locations, they all updated properly. I will keep tabs on it and see if the issue returns.

It's actually pretty good for things as those things are often static. And, that's kind of the idea. Your keys aren't going to be moving around on their own. You can track a phone in near real-time in FindMy, because it's pinging the cell network constantly. I don't think the intention with AirTags is to provide real-time tracking, just to aid you in finding missing items.

That is patently wrong. The whole point of the Air Tag is to be able to locate it when it’s NOT within the Bluetooth range of your iPhone. It has NOTHING to do with it being or not being a GPS device.

The location of the Air Tag when outside the Bluetooth range of the iPhone it’s registered with relies on other iPhones reporting their location when their Bluetooth radios detect the Air Tag in their proximity.

The Find My app updates the location of the devices of the family members as well as the location of the friends who share their location with you just fine.

The problem is not with the Find My app but with how Apple has implemented the AirTag's tracking. It appears to me that if an AirTag is in close proximity of just one iPhone (not the iPhone it's registered with), then the update of the AirTag's location is very infrequent. This is probably in order to prevent active tracking of a person by planting your AirTag in their luggage, clothing, or vehicle. It may be that if you leave your AirTag attached to your keys, wallet, etc. in a public place with more than one iPhones in the close proximity, then the location will be reported more frequently, as it will be reported by multiple iPhones. I don't know this for sure, but that appears to be a plausible explanation why we are seeing the location of the AirTag to be updated so infrequently.

So far, all of my tests involved placing an AirTag in my son's backpack and seeing how often its location is updated when my son is at school. The location updates of that AirTag come very infrequently - not even every 30 minutes. It may very well be because at any time, the AirTag is in the close proximity of just one teacher's iPhone. When my wife picks up my son from school, the location updates of the AirTag (actually it's a Chipolo tag, but it's the same thing) in my son's back is also very infrequent, but this again my be due to the fact that as they are driving home, there is only one iPhone that is in the close proximity of the AirTag.

In other words, it seems to me that Apple tried to straddle both sides of the fence - providing object tracking with an AirTag while preventing people from being able to track others with an AirTag, which is an impossible task. So, what we got as a result is a poorly implemented tracking solution, which can't provide a real-time or near-real-time location updates of the object to which your AirTag is attached.

I confirmed today that I can get updates of the the Air Tag's (actually Chipolo One tag) much more frequently if it encounters different iPhones along the way compared to it being accompanied by one iPhone (to which it's not registered). I believe that that's the way that Apple has implemented the anti-stalking feature.

In the past, I gave my wife my keys with a Chipolo One tag on the key chain when she took our dog for a walk. Then, I tried tracking my key, but I only received one location update in over an hour. Today, however, my wife left her phone at home when she went for a walk with the dog. Our dog has another Chipolo tag (registered with my wife's iPhone) attached to her collar. So, when I started tracking the Chipolo One tag attached to our dog's collar, I was getting location updates about every 5-6 minutes. I made a note of the places where the Chipolo's tag locations were reported, and my wife said that in every one of these locations she passed a person on her walk.

So, my conclusion is that the previous tests described here by me and others do not simulate properly the conditions in which the Air Tag (or Chipolo One tag) is designed to regularly update its location. If the tag is accompanied by the same iPhone, the iPhone will not report its location to iCloud as frequently compared with the scenario when the tag encounters different iPhones along its way.

So, the Air Tag tracking may very well be useful for locating items outside the range of the iPhone that it's registered with as long as the item to which the Air Tag is attached has not been stolen by someone with an iPhone. Because in that case the location updates will be very infrequent. A dog running in the neighborhood seems to be triggering frequent location updates every time the tag attached to the dog's collar encounters another iPhone in its Bluetooth range. I don't know if it's actually possible to find a dog this way, but it's certainly possible to locate the general area where the dog is and perhaps with some luck - find the dog by calling its name.

I found that my daughters new iPhone wasn’t updating my AirTag. So I disconnect the AirTag from my phone and paired it with her. Then I found out that her “find my iPhone” was off. I dented and put it back on my phone after I turned find my iPhone on and it is now finding it. But I agree it was around the same time as 15 came out.

I am using 3 models of iphone: iphone 6, iphone X and iphone 12 pro max. I found that my airtag won't pick up the signals from iphone 6 and iphone X.

That would not be a recommended use, especially not in an area that is not populated. AirTags are not real-time trackers nor are they gps trackers.

I bought four Chipolo One tags, which at the time of this writing is the only third-party tag authorized by Apple to work with the FindMy app. I'm having exactly the same problem: the location of the tags updates very infrequently. I put one tag in my son's backpack, and I saw his location update several times during the school day (he has no iPhone, so teachers' iPhones were sending my son's tag location). However, when my wife (who had an iPhone on her) picked up my son from school and drove him home, the tag's location didn't update even for 15 minutes until they arrived home, and my iPhone detected the tag via Bluetooth. Earlier today, I gave my keys with a tag registered to my iPhone to wife when she took the dog for a walk in a park. My wife had her iPhone on her at all times. They were gone for 1.5 hours, and the location of the tag on my key, which was in my wife's pocket during the entire time) didn't update for the entire 1.5 hours even though my wife had her iPhone in the other pocket. The location showed that the tag was at home the entire time, but the timestamp kept counting up, so it basically showed that the last location was detected over an hour ago until they came back. When they came back, my iPhone saw the tag via Bluetooth, and it showed that the location was detected "now".

This is not the way that AirTags are supposed to work. If the location doesn't get updated for over an hour, this feature is totally useless. Imagine you leave your keys or your wallet somewhere, and you are trying to determine where your item is, but it's location doesn't update for hours. What kind of nonsense is this? By the way, this has nothing to do with the tag itself - be it AirTag or Chipolo One. The tags communicate with the iPhones in their vicinity via Bluetooth. It's the iPhones that are supposed to send the location updates up to iCloud. I suspect that the iPhones do send the location updates every few minutes but it's the iCloud that is not updating the iPhone that the AirTag is registered with frequently enough.

I've just called Apple about this, and I was told that in order for Apple to look at this as a systemic issue with Airtags, more people need to call in and open cases on this issue of the AirTags' location not updating frequently enough. I was told that Apple was not going to be looking at this issue as a systemic issue until they receive enough calls about it. They told me they don't consider this thread as any sort of signal that this happens to a lot of people - they need calls into the Apple support line complaining about it. Otherwise, they are going to treat this as a case-by-case issue, and they will be troubleshooting individual AirTags and not the entire system that's not updating the AirTag's location. Apple is a huge company and a big bureaucracy, so there is a lot of red tape to cut through before they send this issue to the engineers. Please do your part and call this in to Apple.