Apple’s iPhone location history tracking has the potential to monitor every move you make and present it to you in a nice list on your phone — if that’s what you want. There may be many reasons why you would want this switched on, whether it’s to keep a record of where you’ve been, or to get better suggestions from Apple in terms of places to visit and relevant App Store apps for that place. Here’s how to see — and delete — that information.
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QUICK ANSWER
To see your iPhone location history (assuming you’ve enabled it), go to Settings–>Privacy–>Location Services–>System Services–>Significant Locations. You will now see a list of each place you have been to since you turned the feature on. You can tap a location to see it on Apple Maps, and you can also delete the entire history if you wish.
How to see your iPhone location history
Start by going to Settings–>Privacy and tap Location Services.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select System Services.
Scroll down and select Significant Locations.
If this feature is enabled, you will now see every location recorded by your device, since you turned it on. All you need to do is tap Summary and select a place to see it on Apple Maps. You can zoom in and out on the map with your fingers if you need context about the location.
If you want to clear everything, just tap Clear History down below and it will all be gone. If you want location data collecting to then cease, make sure you toggle off the feature before exiting the page.
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FAQs
On the Significant Locations page, there is a link to delete all the data. This is non-reversible. Bear in mind that unless you then disable the feature, your device will start collecting the information again.
Apple says that knowing this information can help them give you relevant information, such as better map directions, more accurate suggestions for places to visit, and better App Store suggestions. Of course, it can also serve as a log of where you’ve been if you need to keep accurate records of work-related travel.
Apple claims that this information is end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by them. Of course, we can only take them at their word on this.
