Ex Can Still See Your Location? Here's Everywhere to Check

Most people who search this have already done the obvious thing. They opened Find My, tapped their ex’s name, hit stop sharing, and assumed that was that. Then a week later the ex mentions where they were on a Tuesday, or a Life360-style app still shows a green dot, or a shared Google Maps pin they forgot existed is still blinking.

If there’s any history of control, threats, or violence, read this first. Removing access can notify the other person, and for some people that moment carries real risk. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (24/7, free) or stopstalkerware.org before you start removing anything below. If your situation is calmer than that, the checklist is safe to run start to finish today.

Here’s the part most guides skip: location sharing after a relationship is almost never one setting. It’s a stack. Find My people-sharing, Family Sharing, a shared Apple ID or Google account, Google Maps, Snapchat, a Life360-style circle, a carrier family plan, and a saved password sitting in a shared notes app can all independently show your location, and disabling one does nothing to the other seven. The order you close them in matters because some holes let your ex reopen the others.

Why closing one setting never closes the loop

The thing people forget to check first is the account, not the app. If your ex still knows your Apple ID or Google password, every individual toggle you flip is temporary. They can sign back into iCloud.com, re-add themselves to Find My, or pull your location from a synced device the next time they think of it. Advocates who work with people leaving relationships describe this exact pattern constantly: someone spends an evening carefully removing an ex from three or four apps, feels done, and has no idea the ex logged into their iCloud account from a laptop the same week.

That’s why the order below starts with account-level access, the thing that can undo everything else, and works down to individual apps.

The order that closes the biggest holes first

1. Change your Apple ID or Google password, from a device your ex has never touched. This is the single step that matters most. A shared or known password means every downstream fix is reversible by them at any time. Go to appleid.apple.com or myaccount.google.com from a friend’s phone or a library computer, change the password, and enable two-factor authentication on a phone number or authenticator app they don’t have access to.

2. Remove trusted devices. Apple: appleid.apple.com, sign in, scroll to Devices, remove anything unfamiliar or anything you know is theirs. Google: myaccount.google.com, Security, Your devices, sign out of anything you don’t recognize. An old laptop or tablet still signed into your account is a standing invitation.

3. Leave or dissolve shared Family Sharing. On iPhone: Settings, your name, Family, tap their name, Remove [Name] From Family. This severs shared purchases, shared photo libraries, and the automatic appearance in each other’s Find My People tab that Family Sharing creates.

4. Stop sharing in Find My specifically. Open Find My, tap People, tap their name, tap Stop Sharing My Location, confirm. Or hide your location from everyone at once: Find My, tap Me, turn off Share My Location.

5. Check Google Maps location sharing separately. This is not the same list as Find My and nothing above touches it. Google Maps, profile photo, Location sharing. Anyone still listed there sees your live location whether or not you’ve done anything on the iPhone side.

6. Turn off Snapchat location. Profile, Settings, See My Location, switch to Ghost Mode. Snapchat’s location sharing is entirely separate from your phone’s system-level settings and from every app above.

7. Leave any Life360-style circle. Open the app, find the shared circle or group, leave it or delete it if you created it. If your ex created the circle, leaving is the only option available to you, and it typically alerts the group that someone left.

8. Check who owns your phone plan. If your ex is the account holder on a shared family plan, carrier tools can show your location independent of anything on your phone. More on this below, because it’s the one most people never think to check.

9. Search your notes, messages, and browser for a saved password to any of the above. A password sitting in an old Notes entry or saved in a shared browser profile recreates every hole you just closed.

Which of these notify your ex

This is worth knowing before you start, because the order above assumes you may want to control what they see and when.

If safety is a real concern, do the silent steps (1, 2, 6, 9) first, and plan the timing of the notifying ones (3, 7, 8) with an advocate.

The one most people never think to check: who owns the plan

A common surprise, even for people who’ve been thorough about apps, is that carrier family-safety features run through the phone network itself, not through anything installed on the device. AT&T Secure Family, Verizon Family Locator, and T-Mobile FamilyWhere let the account holder see a line’s location from the carrier’s own portal or app. None of that depends on Find My, Google Maps, or any setting you control on your phone.

If your ex manages the shared plan, deleting apps and changing passwords does nothing to this. The fix is getting your own line, moving to a plan where you’re the account holder, or, if the carrier allows it, requesting a formal transfer of account ownership. Some carriers require the outgoing account holder’s cooperation for a transfer, which is worth knowing before you assume this will be quick.

Apple’s Safety Check is a faster way to do steps 1 through 5

If you’re on iPhone, Apple built a feature specifically for this situation. Settings, Privacy & Security, Safety Check, gives you two paths: a quick Emergency Reset that immediately stops all location and data sharing and resets access to only your current device, or a slower Manage Sharing & Access mode that walks through each person and app individually so you can see exactly what you’re revoking before you do it. For anyone overwhelmed by the checklist above, this is the shortcut. It does not replace step 8, the carrier plan, or step 9, saved passwords elsewhere, so those still need a manual check.

When this stops being an ex being slow to update settings

Everything above assumes ordinary post-breakup mess: forgotten shares, old logins, apps nobody remembered to close. That’s most cases. Advocates point out that the signal to watch for isn’t the presence of old access, it’s what someone does with it. If your ex mentions a specific place you were, shows up somewhere you didn’t tell them about, or keeps recreating access after you’ve explicitly asked them to stop, that’s no longer digital clutter. It’s monitoring, and some of it meets the legal definition of stalking depending on your state.

If any of that describes your situation, working through this checklist alone isn’t enough. Read our guide on what to do if you found tracking from a partner for evidence collection and safety planning before you remove anything, and contact NDVH at 1-800-799-7233. Removing access from someone who is actively monitoring you can change their behavior in ways worth planning for, not just clicking through.

A last pass, a week later

Do the checklist once, then check back in about a week. New shares don’t usually reappear on their own, but a missed app or a device you forgot you’d signed into is common enough that a second pass catches what the first one didn’t. Our guides on stopping location sharing without someone finding out and why Family Sharing sometimes keeps you visible after you thought you’d left both cover edge cases worth knowing if something still doesn’t add up.