How To Find Your AirTag When You Lose It

It finally happened! An item you attached to your AirTag has gone missing and you need to use your iPhone to locate it. In this article, I’ll show you how to find your lost AirTag.

Items in Find my

What Do I Need To Find My Lost AirTag?

To locate your missing AirTag, you’ll need to use an iPhone or iPod running iOS 14.5 (or later), or an iPad running iPadOS 14.5 (or later). Your device needs to have the Find My app installed and turned on.

The AirTag you’re looking for also needs to be connected to your Apple ID, if you want to use Find My to locate it. If you have not set up your AirTag yet, check out our AirTags setup tutorial on YouTube for some tips!

How Do I Find My AirTag’s Current Location?

The Find My app can help pinpoint the location of your AirTag. Open Find My and tap the Items tab at the bottom of the screen. Then, tap on the item connected to your AirTag.

tap on airtag item in iphone find my app

Your AirTag will show up on the Find My map after you’ve tapped on your item. Once you know where your AirTag is, there are a few things you can do to find it.

Get Directions To Your AirTag

If your iPhone is out of range of your AirTag, or if your iPhone doesn’t support Ultra Wideband, you can use Find My’s Directions feature to find out exactly how to get there. Open the Items list again in Find My and tap on the AirTag you’re looking for.

Once the AirTag shows up on the Find My map, tap Directions. After you tap Directions, your iPhone will open the Maps app and show you the routes you can take to get to your AirTag.

How To Play A Sound On Your AirTag

Once you arrive at the area where Find My located your AirTag, it might still be a little tricky to find. AirTags are pretty small, and many of the items people attach them to are also quite easy to lose or hide.

If your AirTag is stuck in a couch cushion or behind a closed door, you might not be able to find it immediately. Luckily, you can use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to play a sound from your AirTag to make it easier to track down.

To use this feature, open the Find My app and tap Items. Select the item you’re looking for, then tap Play Sound. Your AirTag should begin making a sound as soon as you press the Play Sound button. Listen closely when you do this, as AirTags sounds can be pretty faint.

After a certain amount of time, the sound will stop playing automatically. However, you can also turn off the sound at any point by tapping Stop Sound.

how to play a sound on an airtag

Use Precision Finding For More Exact Directions

If your AirTag is connected to an iPhone 11 or later, you can also use the Precision Finding feature to locate your AirTag. Precision Finding is made possible by Apple’s U1 Ultra Wideband chip. The U1 chip is designed to make it easier than ever for compatible devices to locate each other across space.

On iPhones with the U1 chip, you can use Precision Finding to get specific information about your AirTag’s location in relation to your iPhone.

To use Precision Finding, open Find My and tap the Items tab at the bottom of the screen. Then, tap on the AirTag you’re looking for.

tap on airtag item in iphone find my app

Next, tap Find, then begin moving around to allow your iPhone to pick up your AirTag’s location. While you do this, follow the prompts that show up on your iPhone’s screen.

Once your iPhone senses your AirTag, an arrow should show up on your screen in the direction of your AirTag. Your iPhone may also give you an estimate of how far away your AirTag is. Keep following these directions until you find your AirTag, then tap the X icon to return to the Find My page.

use precision finding to locate airtag

AirTag Lost, AirTag Found!

Hopefully, this article helped you locate your missing AirTag, and your lost possession is now safe and sound. Please feel free to share this article with your friends so they know how to find lost AirTags as well. Thanks for reading!

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