Find My (iphone) using non-apple/Mac computer?

iphone se user guide Said:

"Thx for prompt replies to both of you! i’ve never used or knew site icloud.com. Interesting. Will check it. Just learned of it. Article in Consumer Reports this month of all places! Very handy if can use Find My. Especially to lock if lost in public. Thank you!"

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You are welcome.

Find this iPhone by itself with Find My:

A. Seeing your iPhone in Find My:

As long as Find My is enabled, then they should show up here: http://icloud.com/find

B. Enable Find My on your iPhone:

Go Here: Set Up Find My on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac - Apple Support

iphoneSEuser3 Said:

"Find My (iphone) using non-apple/Mac computer?: To use Find My from PC, can you do so from non-mac? I don’t have mac-apple products except my iphone. Would like to use Find My from ibm PC. Is it possible? Thx."

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Use "Find my device" on a PC:

On a PC, you use Find my device to locate it (and lock it). Go here: Find and lock a lost Windows device - Microsoft Help. That's how to locate the PC, and perhaps the iPhone if it is sitting close by.

I read that enabling allows anyone I interact with will know my current location. Is that true?

Not unless you have set up your account to "share" location information with another user. (You have to do this individually with each user that you want to share your location with.)

iphoneSEuser3 wrote:

One more question:

If enabling Find My, I read that enabling allows anyone I interact with will know my current location. Is that true?

No. Other people can't see your location unless

• You are sharing an Apple ID with them – a really Bad Idea.
• You explicitly allow location sharing – see the Support article to which Bob Timmons linked.
• You are part of a Family Sharing group where location sharing is set up – see Share locations with family members and locate their lost devices on iPhone - Apple Support (to which the other article has a link).
• You send them a photo that has location metadata attached. (This wouldn't make your location show up in Find My, but they could get it from the photo.)

or perhaps

• You are a person "of interest" to the authorities (e.g. a suspect in an Amber Alert kidnapping case) – and authorities are tracking your phone in ways that do not depend on whether Find My is active or not.

As far as apps using your location – which they could do even if Find My was turned off – see

Control the location information you share on iPhone - Apple Support

I notice that sometimes peoples' photos or other communications show where they are located when taking photo.

The Camera app will normally tag photos with metadata that includes the place where you took the photos, and I assume that many other apps which use the camera will, if allowed, do the same.

In the Mac Photos application, when you Export a photo, one of the options you have is whether or not to include location information in the exported copy. This is useful if you want to share a photo but do not want to share the information about where it was taken.

Of course, the content of a photo may give a location away. If you take a photo of your child standing in front of their elementary school, next to a sign with the name of the elementary school, everyone in town is going to know where you took that photo. Even a pedophile living a thousand miles away, viewing that picture on a social media platform or Web site, might figure out where your child goes to school with that much information.

I prefer location info not shared. Does that mean not to enable Find My? Or are there options in Settings somewhere to limit this?

Enable Find My for your own protection – in case your phone is lost or stolen, and you want to "brick" the phone for the thieves. Use the other controls to determine which people and which apps have access to your location.

The iCloud Web interface ( https://www.icloud.com/ ) is useful for more than just Find My.

In particular, I would suggest using iCloud Photos, instead of

• Disabling iCloud Photos, and including photos and videos in regular iCloud backups; or
• Not backing up photos and videos at all (a recipe for losing everything)

With iCloud backups, you can't see what's in them without restoring them to a device. A restore requires a working device – and wipes the current contents of that device. You're not just restoring photos and videos, but everything else that might happen to be in the same backup.

With iCloud Photos, your phone could get run over by a steamroller, and you'd be able to view and download photos that had made it to iCloud from your PC, or from any computer with a modern Web browser. (Or, if you had installed iCloud for Windows, you could view your photos using that.). Having your photos in iCloud Photos instead of in your iCloud backups might also make automatic iCloud backups complete faster. (You may want to check that automatic backups are enabled.)

Download iCloud for Windows - Apple Support

How to back up your iPhone or iPad with iCloud - Apple Support

It's going to take a lot more than one click to share your location with other users that you specify:

Share your location in Find My on iPhone - Apple Support

No, it is not possible to use Find My. However you can use iCloud.com to locate your device from a web browser on your PC.

You can access and use most of the core Find My features through iCloud.com on your Windows PC. These include:   

• Locating your iPhone: View its current location on a map.   
• Playing a sound: If your iPhone is nearby, you can remotely play a sound to help you locate it.   
• Lost Mode: This feature allows you to lock your iPhone, display a custom message on the screen, and track its location until it's found.   
• Erase iPhone: As a last resort, you can remotely erase all data on your iPhone if it's lost or stolen.   

Yes