How to change or remove the locations saved to your iPhone through Apple’s ‘Significant Locations’ feature

OSTN Staff

apple smart phone iphone 11 pro
You can change your Significant Locations easily.

  • To change your iPhone’s “Significant Locations” settings, you’ll need to head to the Privacy menu in your iPhone’s Settings app.
  • The Significant Locations feature on your iPhone tracks and saves locations you frequently visit, in order to personalize apps like Calendar, Maps and Photos.
  • Deleting and changing your Significant Locations data can allow the iPhone location service to reassign your favorite locations more accurately. 
  • Visit Business Insider’s Tech Reference library for more stories.

Apple’s “Significant Locations” service is often helpful no matter how you travel, or how far. The smartphone tool is designed to provide a saved location as a starting point for Apple Maps, giving you driving times and directions, reliable walking routes, or an automatic pickup spot for your rideshare.

In theory, this saves you the hassle of having to type in your address, but it doesn’t always work correctly. When an iPhone gets a Significant Location wrong, the effects can cause delays. However, there is a way to fix an incorrect saved location. 

While you can’t program in your own suggestion, you can delete the location your iPhone has incorrectly saved and allow it to rediscover a more accurate spot. This can be very useful if, for example, you’re going to be staying at a hotel for a few days and your iPhone has saved an inaccurate regular pickup point as the hotel’s address.

Note that this won’t stop your iPhone from tracking you in the future. If you want to do that, you’ll have to turn off location services.

All your Significant Locations data is encrypted and can’t be read by Apple. 

How to change the Significant Locations saved on your iPhone

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Scroll down to select “Privacy.”

3. Tap “Location Services.”

4. Scroll down to select “System Services” (it should be the bottom item).

5. Scroll down to select “Significant Locations.”

how to change location on iphone
Select “Significant Locations.”

6. This will require you to authenticate yourself through Face ID, Touch ID, or by typing in your passcode.

Location 3.PNG
Your Significant Locations are locked behind your passcode or ID.

7. To change and update specific locations, select a city from the list under the History banner.

8. Select an address from the list of saved spots.

9. Tap on “Edit” in the upper right corner of the map screen. 

10. Tap the red dot icon next to the specific address you wish to change.

11. Tap “Delete” and your iPhone will clear out that address, and will rerecord it the next time you visit.

Location 5.PNG
Tap the minus icon, then Delete, to clear out a saved location.

How to delete all of the Significant Locations on your iPhone

1. Start from “Significant Locations.”

2. Scroll down to select “Clear History”. It should be at the bottom of the cities list.

Location 6
Once cleared, your iPhone will start re-assigning all locations going forward.

If you want to turn Significant Locations off, simply flip the green button at the top of your Significant Locations page to grey. If you want to turn off location tracking altogether, you can learn how to do that by reading our article, “How to stop your iPhone from tracking your location, and manage each app’s location tracking.”

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

Read the original article on Business Insider

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