• Apple’s Location Services feature enables the company and third-party apps to use your location in order to provide services like transit directions and restaurant recommendations among many others.
  • In the iPhone’s Settings menu, you can view and edit a list of all of the places the iPhone has tracked through Location Services.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Many of the apps and services you use on a daily basis are probably using your location data in one way or another – whether it’s to provide transit directions or to serve up recommendations for nearby points of interest.

On the iPhone, you can view a list of each individual location that’s been logged through Location Services, the feature that enables Apple and third-party apps to gather location data to provide services like those mentioned above. Apple determines your device’s approximate location through GPS and Bluetooth signals as well as crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower locations.

This list of places, called Significant Locations, is encrypted end-to-end and cannot be read by Apple. You can also turn it off in the iPhone’s Settings menu.

Here’s a look at how to view and edit the list of locations tracked through Location Services.


Open the 'Settings' menu on your iPhone by tapping the icon on your home screen.

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Choose 'Privacy.'

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Tap 'Location Services.'

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Scroll down to the bottom of the list of apps that use Location Services and select 'System Services.'

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Press the 'Significant Locations' option.

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

After authenticating with your password or Face ID, you'll see a list of cities and towns you've recently visited.

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Tap one of the cities to view a map showing all of the locations within that city that you've recently visited.

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

You can also tap the "Edit" button in the top right corner of the screen to erase individual locations from this list.


If you want to delete your entire location history, go back to the 'Significant Locations' list, scroll down to the bottom of the list, and press 'Clear History.'

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

To turn off 'Significant Locations,' toggle the slider at the top of the 'Significant Locations' list.

Foto: sourceLisa Eadicicco/Business Insider